Mocker
by darkpadawan11
Summary: Norman Cooper believed he had run far enough to escape Umbrella. He was wrong. The small Canadian town of Grace Lake is now overrun by the TVirus in a deliberate act to isolate the BOW Cooper stole when he fled his former employers
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

_Grace Lake Hospital_

The patient was writhing, his pale face slick with sweat. Doctor Norman Cooper watched with a perfectly composed expression as the man began to moan hoarsely, a frightful sound that made Della wince and cast her boss a worried look.

If she'd been looking for any kind of sympathy then she was going to be disappointed. Dr. Cooper didn't even glance in her direction, his attention fixed on the afflicted patient.

_Damn, _she thought, _nothing can unsettle him._

"When was he admitted?" Dr. Cooper asked in an icy voice.

"His son brought him in three hours ago. Dr. Blake was on duty-"

Cooper didn't let Della finish. "Was he still conscious?"

_Who, the patient or Blake? _Dr. Blake had a well-known problem with alcohol and although no one caught him drinking on duty, Della had her suspicions. She tactfully said nothing and instead checked the clipboard in her hands.

"Yes. But he was in no way lucid enough to give Blake any relevant information. His son could only give us sketchy details-apparently he was bitten yesterday by something in the National Park." Della shook her head sympathetically, her eyes unwillingly following the line of his pale, bare arm to the already festering wound on his forearm. It was obviously a bite, but from what? Della didn't know of anything capable of such a vicious bite without taking off the arm.

_Maybe he ran into Old Ben out there._ The enormous bear was so legendary around the small town that he'd been taken on as an unofficial mascot, adorning the town flag and official stationary. Della hadn't seen him herself-thank God for small mercies. Besides, she frowned, weren't bears supposed to hibernate during winter? Had this unfortunate guy disturbed the black bear's den or something?

"Was he able to tell you what attacked him?" Cooper's voice was growing hard and even more impatient.

Della shook her head. "He began to lose it." She gave a nervous laugh. "Started yelling about skinned deer and wolves, but most of what he was saying was incoherent. He was given sedatives then, mainly so we could calm him down enough to clean that wound. He had to be physically restrained because he was threatening the staff with violence."

Dr. Cooper jerked his head in the nurse's direction faster than she could blink. "Did he injure anyone?" he demanded.

"No doctor," Della replied, a little taken aback at this sudden display of concern. "At least, not that I noticed. Dr. Blake took every precaution when clearing up the wound. But as you can see, the antibiotics have had no effect. That was what initially convinced Blake that it was rabies."

The disturbing information didn't unnerve Cooper. He merely crossed his arms and nodded, like Della was merely confirming something he'd already suspected. "Did Blake begin the blood work and usual tests?"

"Yes, but it'll be hours yet before the centre in Vancouver can get back to us. Dr. Blake suspected rabies, but its winter and there shouldn't be any infected bats about-"

"That national park is riddled with caves," Cooper corrected arrogantly, "but I don't think its rabies. That virus doesn't coagulate the blood while the patient lives. And he's not raving or foaming at the mouth." He finally turned to face Della. "Have you sent any paperwork across the border yet?"

That was weird. Della shook her head, wondering what the patient could possibly have that would interest the US authorities. Their own government had the resources capable of dealing with a rabies outbreak, so what could it be?

Cooper saw the confusion on her face, and shrugged. "Do you recall that infection a few months ago in the United States, back in October I believe?"

Della shook her head again. Here in Grace Lake there was very little risk of coming into contact with anything that dangerous. The worst Della had ever had to deal with a case of rabies four years ago and the occasional accident when the mine had still been in business.

"The cannibal disease? The one that destroyed Raccoon City?"

"Oh, _that_ one." Della frowned. "Wait a minute. Wasn't that all industrial terrorism or something? Didn't a tech spill a test tube in a lab somewhere?"

Cooper snorted softly, returning his eyes to the pale moaning man on the bed. The dull light reflected from his glasses. "That's what they told the media at least." His voice took on a sharp edge. "Send samples to the Disease Control Centre in the States. If we're dealing with this 'cannibal disease', then I'd like to know exactly what precautions we should take."

"You don't think it's that serious do you?" Della chanced a glance at the patient. "Will he be okay?"

"I don't want it to be that serious," he answered, "but I've never seen anything like this before. I want no one in here without my presence. The danger of contamination is too great. Is that clear? The risk this may spread is high."

Della had to agree with him. The festering wound wasn't responding to any of the antibiotics or repeated attempts to clean it, and the man was beyond any of the medications being administered through his IV.

_And his eyes…_It was like the poor guy was going cataract-but that had to be impossible. She'd never seen anything like it either.

So she never doubted for a moment that Dr. Cooper was being completely honest when he denied any knowledge of what the patient was afflicted with. Della merely thought he was being cautious, and far more responsible than Dr. Blake. She didn't know that the respected doctor was actually struggling to maintain his composure now faced with something he'd believed to have left behind years ago.

The T-virus had somehow been leaked in Grace Lake. And Norman Cooper had absolutely no idea how such a thing could be possible.

Manitoba had _no_ Umbrella facilities. He'd made certain of it before moving here to hide from them.

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_Holland Farm_

Ed Holland scratched his ass crack with one hand and was guzzling down the first beer of the morning when an ungodly shriek shattered the early morning silence.

_Was that Billy again? _Holland had been having nothing but difficulty with the young bull he'd bought last season. The bugger had gone from being a manageable juvenile to an aggressive bastard in the space of a few months, permanently ruining the smooth way he usually ran his farm, not to mention the pre-dawn wake up calls. Ed had been giving serious thought to having Billy steak lately. Nice thick T-Bones at that…

He paused, the can still at his mouth and his left hand still in between his butt cheeks, waiting for the strange sound to repeat itself. After a moment of listening to nothing but the refrigerator hum and feeling like a fool, he went back to enthusiastically scratching his ass and guzzling down the warm beer.

The second scream was closer, and made him drop the can, the foamy liquid splattering all over his legs.

"Ah shit!" Doing his best not to slip on the kitchen linoleum, Ed managed to hobble over to the sink and start wiping his legs with a sponge.

"Damn Billy," he swore to himself, bending a little too far. His back twinged warningly. _Great_. Now he'd have to pay that con artist calling himself a chiropractor to make his back better. Not to mention the countless hours driving south to Brandon.

Ed did his best to mop the floor with the sponge, but the kitchen still stank of beer when he finished, so he knew it was inevitable the floor would be sticky later. Throwing the sponge into the sink, he shuffled to the back door.

The early morning sun was shining brilliantly across the snow covered yards, the reflection making Ed squint. He yawned and stretched his arms before realising that there was something wrong about the peaceful scene spread out before him.

There was no sound. The cattle were unusually silent. Frowning, Ed stepped out to the porch, the early morning chill not bothering him in the slightest. He peered across at the barns, but couldn't really see anything-those damned fir trees were blocking the view. Ed leaned over the porch railing, vaguely wondering where the earlier shrieks had come from. No cattle ever sounded like that, not even in an abattoir.

He didn't have long to wait. A bellow filled the morning silence, so unexpected and so loud that Ed clapped his hands to his ears, wondering how such a sound could be possible. It wasn't anything he'd ever heard before; it was like a bull screaming through a blood-filled throat.

The sound of hooves thundering towards him made Ed turn to his right. It was only then that he saw the monstrosity charging towards him. His mind barely had the time to register the torn and shredded four-legged form before it reached him, using it's already deformed horns to impale him.

Ed screamed, but the thin human shriek couldn't compete with the tremendous bellow Billy gave before throwing him across the snowy yard. Ed landed on his side hard, the breath knocked out of him. He scrambled to his feet, his exposed arms and legs now numbing quickly. He attempted to run, to escape to the barns before Billy could charge at him again.

He took only one step before crying out in agony, his chest burning suddenly, like he'd had a damn heart attack. He clutched a hand to his side and kept hobbling in the direction of the barns. The heavy carpet of snow made it difficult, his laboured breath frosting in the cold air, but he made it to the fence before Billy gave another bellow.

Ed desperately reached with both hands and tried to pull himself over the fence. The bull's hooves were getting closer, the sound filling his mind with terror.

He fell to the ground with another hard thump. Aware of how close Billy was, Ed tried to get up, but a pain beyond anything he'd ever experienced made him stop.

He rolled to the side of his body that was agonising. The snow he was lying on was stained crimson with his blood.

_The bastard gored me! The mother fu-_

Billy broke through the fence and Ed Holland's world was full of pain. Impossibly, he could hear the loud shrieking pick up again just before Billy's brutal hooves came down on his head.

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_Jacobi House_

"Matt! Dirk's here!"

Loud honking confirmed his mother's statement. Matt Jacobi finished zipping his equipment bag and glanced out of his window. Sure enough, the battered Ford Dirk tentatively called a car was pulled up out front, spewing exhaust fumes into the chilly morning air. Downstairs, his dog, Jesse, was barking enthusiastically at the door.

Hefting the heavy bag over one shoulder, he reached for his hockey stick, but paused with his fingers millimetres from it.

_It doesn't mean anything really, does it?_

Matt couldn't argue with himself. Only days ago, reaching for this same stick was one of the few things he'd lived for. Now priorities had to change.

"Yeah Mom, I'm coming down in a minute!" Matt called back, grabbing the stick. He cast his room a last look; for all he knew, he might never see this place again if he and Dirk were right about Jamie. The shelves full of horror novels and old comics, the television with the game system untidily strewn across his floor, the posters he'd nicked from work that covered the walls all made him hesitate for a second. For the first time in forever, Matt suddenly wished he were a little kid again.

_Are we doing the right thing? What if Jamie really was telling the truth…?_

Matt bit his lower lip. He was only a high school kid, not a character from one of his novels or movies. If Jamie really was telling the truth about what happened up at the cabins then he was probably the last person who should be dealing with the problem. Matt had never shared the same clever nature that Jamie and Dirk did.

_What's the alternative then? Let Jamie rot in jail for a crime he didn't commit? No one else believes him, not even after what happened in the States last year. I have to. I don't have a choice. _

Satisfied with his own answer, Matt quietly walked out of his room, setting his bag softly down on the landing. Finding his father's study was easy; getting in was even easier using the key he'd stolen last night from his dad's keychain.

The study was dim, but Matt was glad the shades were down; even less chance of being caught. Mrs. O'Grady next door could get awfully nosy sometimes.

Pushing the door open, Matt made a beeline for the cabinet standing behind the polished desk. Grateful that his father hadn't locked it, he carefully pulled open the glass-fronted doors.

Four rifles were revealed in the dim light. He took three of them, and reached for the drawer set into the cabinet. Boxes of cartridges and ammunition were crammed tightly into the enclosed space. Matt had to carefully pull the boxes out one by one, piling them on the desk beside the rifles.

"Matt! Dirk's committing serious environmental damage out there! Get a move on!"

Not daring to answer, but knowing that his mother would think it strange if he didn't, Matt slung all three rifles over his shoulder and grabbed an armful of ammunition. Torn between wanting to get out without being caught and covering his tracks so he could avoid later punishment, Matt decided that if his father came home first and found the ammunition strewn all over his desk and the rifles missing, then his punishment would be well earned.

He didn't have the time to lock the door behind him, and hurried for the landing and unzipped his equipment bag. He stuffed the rifles and ammunition inside only seconds before his mother appeared at the foot of the stairwell. Matt forced a smile to his face and was about to head for the stairs when he heard a weak voice calling for him.

"Luke?" Matt stopped in the door way of his little brother's room. Luke was still curled up in bed, peering at him miserably over the brightly coloured blankets, sandy blonde hair askew and mussed up.

"Hey, what's wrong with you?" he asked, noticing how pale the little guy's face was. "Got the flu?"

Luke nodded. "Mommy's takin' me the doctor today," he sniffled.

"You're just scammin'." Matt gave Luke a brotherly grin. "I'll see you when I get home. Take care of Jesse for me, okay?"

His little brother nodded. "Can I brush him?" he asked, lisping slightly.

"Why not? Just make sure Mom knows." Luke adored Jesse, had been annoying the dog ever since Jesse had been a pup. Matt didn't think they had long before Luke insisted on a dog of his own.

Luke sank into his blankets, so Matt turned and headed down the stairwell, almost tripping over Jesse. The Huskie jumped around his legs, licking enthusiastically at Matt's hands. Matt bent down to scratch Jesse's ears.

"Have a good day at school, hon," Mrs. Jacobi said, blowing her reddened nose.

"Seriously, when do I ever have a good day at school?" Matt joked lightly, leaning to give her a peck on the check.

"Nuh-huh. I think I've caught that cold your father's come down with. Don't wanna pass it on." She gave him a weak smile. "Davey and Luke have already come down with it."

"So Luke's really not going to school today? Lucky bugger." Matt started for the door but paused briefly. "Mom?"

Mrs. Jacobi glanced up, her expression slightly puzzled. "Yes sweetie?"

"Love you," he said awkwardly. Before his mother could respond, Matt hurried out, slamming the door behind him. He tripped up a dozen times as he trudged across the snow-covered yard.

"Anyone catch you?" Dirk demanded as soon as he'd put his equipment bag into the trunk and climbed into the car.

"Of course not," Matt answered.

"Good. So then boys," Dirk asked the two other teens in the car, "you all ready for the most fucked up hunt of all time?"

Matt didn't cheer with Gary and Ian. He was getting a bad feeling about all of this now they were really doing it. Half of him wanted to leap from the car when Dirk began pulling away and started towards school.

"Dude, I thought we weren't going to school today," Ian complained from the back seat. "What's that all about?"

"_Dude_," Dirk replied, putting a nasty emphasis on the word, "we're not. I parked my dad's four wheel drive at Gary's. We've got to go pick it up and hide this car so our parents don't know we've skipped. I kind of thought that Matt's mom would recognise my Ford, not to mention notice that it's heading in the opposite direction to where it should be."

"Oh yeah," Ian said sheepishly, earning himself a playful punch from Gary.

Matt was doing his best to ignore his friends, staring numbly at the passing houses and trees. Instead of getting all revved up like the others, he was feeling cold inside.

"What about you Matt?" Dirk asked, a half-grin on his face and a gleam in his green eyes. "Ready to see what's _really_ in those woods?"

Matt didn't return the grin. "As ready as ever," he replied, crossing his arms and sinking into his seat. "It's Jamie's only chance to get off the charges, right?"

Dirk nodded and turned right at the next intersection, heading for Gary's place. "We all know he didn't do it," he said matter-of-factly. "Jamie would never hurt them. And we all know he had nothing to do with the campers that went missing before New Years."

He was right. Jamie wasn't capable of what the police were claiming he did up at the cabin. Killing three people-let alone their friends-wasn't the kind of thing shy, nervous Jamie would even consider, let alone _do_. Matt believed him, knew that even though Jamie's story was insane, it made more sense than Jamie snapping and going on a killing spree.

"So we find what did," Matt added in a low voice. "And if we find them, we'll kill them ourselves."

"We're goin' on a zombie hunt!" Gary added cheerfully from the back seat.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

"_1211 should be regaining her senses within minutes, sir. The upgrades were completed without incident, just as Dr. Sutton predicted."_

"_Good. Tell Langley to be prepared to run through the training sequences again tonight. I want to assess the damage that fool Joseph's caused. I need to know how far he's set back our research."_

_The second voice shatters the silence, tears away the lull of silence. She doesn't want to wake up; it's kinder here, in the darkness. _Perhaps if I stay here_, she thinks, _they will not find me_. The dark can hide her, so she attempts to throw herself into it, immerse herself within it._

"_She's resisting the adrenaline injections," says another voice. This was softer, more cultured. Familiar, but not at all reassuring. "Should we increase the dosage sir?"_

_She's dimly aware that the more attention she gives to the voices intruding upon her quiet, dark domain, the more she is being dragged from it unwillingly. Desperately needing to get away from the voices- _theyhurt,_ an unfamiliar inner voice warns her-she plunges further into the inky void._

"_Dr. Bernard! She's overthrown the 2D-S protocols! The MDR is going static!" The shrill, panicked voice cuts into the void, bringing a strange grey light with it that partially illuminates horrors hiding in the darkness with her. "1211's gone into a self-induced coma!"_

That's consciousness_, the unfamiliar voice warns her. With that voice, the monsters scream and snap and threaten, but they recoil back into the shadowed recesses of her mind. For the first time, she recognises that it is a female voice. _They want to bring you back. To steal you away from here and trap you again.

_Back? Back where? Trap? Again?_

Home_, the voice answers. _They want to bring you home.

_Home? What's home?_

"_Sir! The TKC readouts are becoming unstable!"_

"_Then make them stable," comes the sharp reply._

"_But sir-"_

"_Do it! Inject more of the strain. It will stabilise her."_

"_It will have to," says another voice, this one with an accent different to the others. _

See how desperately dependant they've become on you?_ Asks the internal voice, slightly smug. _See how far they're willing to go to get you back? Ah look-they've brought _him_ with them. Now the fun should start. He's going to command us to come home. And you will, like the faithful bitch they have made of us.

"_1211," says a voice that fills her with conflict. It's coldly soothing, persuasive. She trusts him, yet she wants to kill him. She adores him, wants to be obedient for him, yet resents and loathes him bitterly for restraining her, for-_

Yes! _Exclaims the inner voice, _turn him away!

_But she's unable to. Bound by something stronger than the darkness, more frightening than the monsters, a link she doesn't understand or even want to, that calm, familiar voice returns and she is driven to listen to it._

"_1211, you are commanded to stand down. Re-enact the 2D-S protocols and return to Condition Five."_

NO._ The inner voice is insistent, refusing to accept the command, holding their link strong. _Don't answer the call. Condition Zero. Condition Nothing. Don't do it! Ignore him!

_But she does. She has to. She relinquishes her grip on the darkness, and…_

_Suddenly, the darkness is torn into pieces by colours, and sounds, and smells. The monsters give one fragile scream before dissolving into the brilliant colour. Her eyes fly open, and she sees the medical instruments lying on a small table beside the morgue slab she's on. She glances about, taking in her surroundings._

_Like the other rooms she's woken up in and remembers clearly now, it is exactly the same, but smells different, _feels_ different. She can sense one of the _others_, but doesn't know what it is. _

A plaything_, the inner voice answers in a resentful tone. _The scent is of a plaything. ConditionSeven Training-remember?

_No. Should I? Is it important that I-_

_That is when she realises something, something even she considers odd._

_There's blood everywhere. _

_Red, all over the stainless steel instruments. _

_Red, dripping from the gloved hands of a man standing close to her._

_Red, staining the brilliant white of the man's lab coat. _

_Red, splashed across the sterile white tiles on the floor. _

_Brilliant, eye-scalding red everywhere…_

You always did have an artist's eye. That's _your_ blood, your shade_, the inner voice says smoothly, like a trusted confidante. _Why don't we see if they appreciate their own particular shade of red?

_Yes, she agrees, glad at last to be capable of doing something that appeases the voice inside her head. She rises from the table, snapping restraints easily like rubber bands. _

_Piercing sound begins to blare, frightening her at first, but when nothing immediately changes, she begins to appreciate the sound of the technicians screaming in surprise and shock and reaches for the medical instruments on the table, the stainless steel cold beneath her fingertips. The edge of the scalpel blade gleams in the stark white fluorescent light._

Just like an artist's brush_, the voice encourages, _long strokes, deliberate strokes…

_She leaps nimbly from the slab and begins practicing her art, blood splashing across the medical equipment and staining more lab coats…Warming her arms, her hands, her legs, her feet…_

"_For the love of God, let me stop her! I warned you the TKC wouldn't hold during surgery-" It is the commanding voice. This one she recognises and responds to. She reaches for another technician and more blood and gore sprays across the one-way mirror that lines one of the walls._

Hypocrite_, the inner voice snarls._ You did this to us! You!

_Who did this? Who did _what_? Her questions go unanswered in the flood of rage that threatens to overwhelm her. It is foreign colour, not her own or that of the trusted voice beyond the glass. Unfamiliar emotion that doesn't belong to her courses through her veins, pushing away her conscious thought._

"_Shut up Joseph. That is what she was created to do; let her have a little fun. After the trouble last week, you should be more accommodating for your charge. After all, didn't Meredith liken Handlers to parents during one presentation?"_

Oh, Mama, the irony!_ The inner voice is positively gleeful now, its whimsical moods gripping her as entirely as her own. _Aren't I special now? _Confused but enjoying herself, she willingly surrenders her will to the tide of strange colour and sound, enjoying this unfamiliar strength that floods her body._

_She corners the last of the technicians, cowering in front of the mirror, hands raised in a futile effort to defend himself._

_She pulls him to his feet, almost kindly. He's trembling, the metal and glass things on his face askew. He hardly looks much older than the reflection of herself in the gore-smeared mirror, still more child than adult in the terrified but awed manner he's regarding her with his large blue eyes. It's all the more amplified by the strange things on his face._

Glasses_, the voice adds, _call them glasses.

_She fixes them, smiles softly and strokes the side of his face, smearing the blood of his co-workers across his cheek._

_He calms reluctantly, but she can smell his colour. It is murky, and makes her feel ill._

That is fear, _the inner voice tells her. _It stinks. Fear always does.

"_That child wasn't mine," the commanding voice argues, a rare touch of desperation in his tone. "She was yours! And look at what you've done in the name of research-"_

"_She is merely one of a generation," the colder voice interrupts. _

_She pauses to turn to the mirror, seeing her own face as if it were entirely unfamiliar. The pale hair is soaked with blood, her eyes are ringed with dark circles, the blood of her victims smeared and splattered all over pale limbs and the hospital shift she's wearing._

That is my face_, the inner voice comments withobvious malice. _You still wear _my_ face.

_Don't I have one of my own? _

No,_ is the cruel answer. _And you never will.

"_A generation of abused children," the trusted voice says angrily. "A generation of children you can control like dolls-"_

"_Not dolls, Joseph. Dutiful children, obedient children who will obey direct orders without question. Are you growing too attached to your charge? Do you think yourself her father now?" A satisfied snicker. "You are a fool. Have you forgotten that 1206 and 1215 have already turned on their Handlers? Need I remind you of the mess they left in the containment cages?"_

_The words are difficult to understand, but she does understand one word- father. Believing she understands now, she returns her stare to the cowering man in front of her._

"_Daddy?" she asks, and brings down the scalpel. She turns to face the mirror, to where she can sense the owner of the commanding voice._

"_Daddy?" she repeats, almost forlornly. _

He's not your Daddy_; the voice says coldly, implacably, _he'll never be your daddy. No matter how hard he tries. No matter who he kills.

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_Apartment 2D_

Lindsay Cooper rolled over on her side, trying to ignore the phone ringing and return to sleep. Whoever was calling was insistent. The ringing eventually forced her to reach blindly for the receiver, knocking over cans of beer, dozens of magazines and a pizza box before she finally found it.

"'Lo?" she mumbled.

"Don't tell me you're still on the lounge," a bright and familiar voice trilled, so loud it made Lindsay wince.

Lindsay glanced at the crochet blanket still lying across her legs. "I'm still on the lounge," she replied unenthusiastically. "Don't act like you're at all surprised Wendy."

"It's almost half past eight Lindsay! Don't you have an appointment with your dad this morning?" Wendy's disapproval could be heard clearly.

"Half past eight! Bloody hell, I didn't fall asleep until three. I don't have to be down at the hospital until eleven. Anyway, I'm just getting my prescription renewed; it isn't like it's anything that important." Lindsay yawned and slumped back. Her head was already aching.

"A renewal? Are you sure about that? You're taking too many of those things as it is."

_Not a good sign for the day_, she thought warily. If the migraines were going to start up so early she might as well write the rest of the day off. Unless…She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder, scanning the nearby coffee table for…yes! She reached for the familiar blue plastic case, popping the lid open.

_Only nine left_, she thought, hating the panic that shot through her body.

"Was that it or were you ringing me just to be a pain?" Lindsay asked, tapping a trio of pills onto her palm.

_White to stop the pain, red to make me happy and blue to keep me sane._ Her friend Pete had come up with the ditty during one of their drinking sessions. The damn thing had stuck, becoming less funny as the months went on.

"Stop being so grumpy. I was mainly calling to make sure you went and saw your dad. And to get you off that couch-it's your day off, go have fun or something."

"In Grace Lake? You're kidding right?" Lindsay didn't bother to hide the sarcasm.

"Enough with the negativity. Go skate or visit Windsor. He probably needs you to muck out his stables or something."

"Hah hah. Not funny." Wendy didn't think much about Lindsay's frequent visits up to Ralph Windsor's ranch, or her passion for horses. "Horseshit is the last thing I need right now. I'd probably puke for week."

"Oh yeah. I'd forgotten all about him. How is Chase, by the way?" Wendy's teasing wasn't doing much to improve her mood. "Dean told me he saw you guys here last night. I didn't know you could dance Lindsay."

Lindsay groaned. "I didn't know either." She began checking beer cans for something to wash the pill down with.

"Well, apparently you put on quite a show last night. I wouldn't be surprised if you start getting more locals up at the Lodge. Who knew the receptionist was so talented? Sure you don't wanna quit and start working at that titty bar in Nelson?"

"Please, Wendy, stop," Lindsay begged, finding no beer left in any of the cans.

"Hey, at least I'm your best friend. Wait 'til Pete sees you next. He'll be so pissed his drinking buddy has found herself a new friend, not to mention disappointed you never showed him your unknown talents," Wendy laughed.

"Hey, he's _your_ fiancée," Lindsay retorted.

"Your friend first. So if anything goes wrong, I can blame you," Wendy playfully replied. "Look, Dean's giving me dirty looks so I better go. Make sure you see your dad, talk to him about when you can start getting off those pills. They aren't doing you any favours."

_Tell me about it_, Lindsay agreed silently.

"And have some fun or something-without coming down here or going into the fridge. No alcohol today."

"What are you, my mom?" Lindsay joked weakly.

"I'm serious. You have to recover from your bender last night. How hung over are you?"

"Not too bad," Lindsay lied.

"I can tell when you're lying to me Lindsay," Wendy admonished, "and when you're hung over. Just relax today, okay? Take it easy. It's your day off."

"Alright," Lindsay promised, staring at the pills in her palm. "I'll see you tonight then."

"Take care," Wendy called, and then hung up.

Lindsay took a deep breath and went out to the kitchen. She was filling a glass from the tap when the phone began to ring again.

"I swear Wendy, I won't be down at Keller's today!" she cried into the phone, not bothering to say hello.

"That's great Lindsay-love 'cos we need you in at work today," Irene Morgan, the wife of Lindsay's boss, said good-naturedly. "Sorry to call at such short notice, but are you able to come in?"

Lindsay closed her eyes, begging for strength to get through today. "Sure, I can come in," she answered, "so long as you don't mind a hung over receptionist."

"That's all right love. It's better than what we'd have if you don't come in. Everyone's called in sick." Irene was indignant. "Can you believe it? Not even the cleaners are coming in today-only Fred, Bob and me are here love."

"Irene, you shouldn't be working. Bob shouldn't be either. You guys sounded terrible when I left last night. Have you made an appointment down at the clinic yet?" Lindsay put the white pill in first, swallowing it down easily.

"Not yet love, not with things the way they are up here. I'm just glad it's not peak season; could you imagine? I'll call later, make an appointment for tomorrow. Most of them should be better by then. So I'll see you in…"

"Half an hour," Lindsay finished, putting in the red pill. _Red to make me happy. I'm gonna need all the happiness I can get._ "I'll need time to get showered and get out there."

"Not in that matchbox car of yours? Lindsay, you should get that father of yours to get you a safer car. I worry about you driving around in that little thing."

"Better than killing myself with anything bigger, Irene. I can't imagine being a better driver in a bigger car," Lindsay rejoined, swallowing the pill. "How many guests are there? Still just the three?"

"Yup, and we ain't expecting any others, so don't bother wearing the usual. The young fellow in cabin six probably won't mind what you're wearing, and the others still haven't shown their heads this morning."

"Don't worry Irene, I wasn't going to make any effort on their behalf," Lindsay said, taking a mouthful of water. "I'll be in soon, okay?"

"Thanks again love, I'll see you when you get in."

After Irene hung up, Lindsay popped the blue pill into her mouth, thinking about the nightmare she'd been having before Wendy's call had interrupted it. None of it made any sense…blood, dead scientists, art? One thing had been familiar.

_That voice, the 'inner' one. I recognised it. And what was all that "Daddy" business all about?_

She shook her head. _Not going through that all over again. Like my life isn't screwy enough as it is._ Determined, she swallowed the pill down with the last mouthful of water. _Blue to keep me sane._

Yup. Not as funny as it used to be, she decided.

Lindsay decided not hang up the receiver properly, instead leaving it sitting on the coffee table, among the garbage that would have to wait until after work now. She'd had enough of phone calls this morning.

Showering and dressing didn't take as long as usual considering she didn't have to bother with the usual pants suit and make up that Irene insisted she wear. The steamy bathroom mirror revealed a tired looking young woman, very obviously recovering from overindulging the previous night. Her dark grey eyes were lined with dark circles, her skin was pasty, her cheeks more hollowed out than she remembered.

_At least I look as great as I feel, _she thought wryly, pulling a hairbrush through her dark wet hair. She pulled on her most comfortable, worn blue jeans, and then layered up with a long-sleeved green top under a thick woollen turtleneck jumper.

She shuffled into the living room of the small apartment, braiding her damp dark hair loosely while scanning the floor for her shoes. Her worn hiking boots were still where she'd left them last night, under the coffee table beside her handbag. Bending down to lace them securely made her head ache even more, but she knew the white pill would kick in soon. She could already feel the effects of the red pill, her mood lightening slightly.

A quick glance out of the window showed her that today wasn't going to be warm at all, despite the shining sun. She sighed, digging under a pile of laundry waiting to be ironed and found her well-loved ski cap. Wendy had knitted it for her years ago, when they'd both still been in school, and Lindsay cherished it. Pulling it cautiously over her sore head, Lindsay was about to pull on her gloves when she noticed the silver charm bracelet sitting on the edge of the coffee table.

_Ah shit. Dad would have killed me if I'd forgotten that._ The charm bracelet had been a gift from her mother, back before she'd died in a terrible car accident. Lindsay had survived that same accident, but things hadn't been the same since. Her dad had uprooted everything, accepted the job here in Grace Lake and moved them without even discussing it. Lindsay hadn't minded that-Winnipeg was full of constant reminders-but she did mind being so distant from her father. She snapped the delicate silver bracelet about her wrist, the tiny silver charms catching the morning light.

_Maybe that's what that screwy nightmare was trying to tell me,_ she thought, _maybe I've got to deal with the issues I have with Dad. _That thought made her head ache harder. Even considering having to approach her stern, demanding father and attempting to repair their fractured relationship was more than she could deal with right now.

Lindsay tossed the plastic pill-case into her handbag, already regretting having to miss her appointment. She only had six left now. Finding her car keys was a bit of battle, but she eventually found them under yesterday's copy of the _Grace Lake Herald_. The headline made her pause for a second, the keys gripped tightly in her hand.

_MISSING TOURIST FOUND DEAD-FAMILY STILL MISSING_

Lindsay had been as aware as anyone else about the couple who went missing just before New Years, but she hadn't heard anything about a missing family. Frowning, she started to skim the article.

_...American family on vacation…father's body found decomposing in the national park…wife and children not found…local police suspect homicide…possible connection to the disappearance of Leslie Bell and Tim Avery on the 29th December last year…Parks and Wildlife services reject claims that local wildlife might have played a role…_

She tossed the paper onto the table, musing on it as she pulled on her heavy green parka. They hadn't checked in at the Lodge, so she'd never met them.

What the hell was happening to this world? She wondered as she stepped out the door of the apartment. Grace Lake had always been a quiet little town where the worst had been a bar brawl down at Keller's. Now families were going missing and turning up dead, kids were killing their friends… She shook her head, feeling even more depressed. The red pills weren't strong enough to cope with real life.

_Well, at least I have work to be happy about,_ she thought sarcastically, glad she still had two red pills in her bag. She was definitely going to need them today. For some reason, she had the sinking feeling that things were only going to get progressively worse.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Iron Creek Lodge_

Jake Hansen was already awake when the cell began to ring. He set down his coffee and turned away from that morning's copy of the local paper. _LOCAL TEEN TRAGEDY-MURDER?_ Blared from its cover sensationally.

"Yes?" he answered, doing his best to keep the insolence from his tone. The new boss didn't share the same appreciation for Jake's sense of humour that his old one had.

_Pity_, Jake thought, _the old guy could use a healthy dose of self-depreciation. And maybe a good-_

"Grace Lake Hospital has contacted the DCC in the United States. It's now time to act." The smooth voice on the other end betrayed nothing to Jake's disappointment. He had no idea of how important this mission would be-and after spending two weeks freezing his ass off in northern Canada, Jake wanted some real action, not a milk-run any rookie could pull off.

_Don't like your chances_, he thought. Grace Lake would be the usual pedestrian fare; find some loony scientist, shoot him, take his research and secure whatever samples happened to be around. Jake had been on so many of these missions lately that he could probably kill Umbrella's delightful zombies in his sleep.

_Hey, maybe someone else will find out and want to play too._ That thought brought a smile to his face. During his last mission, he'd had to eliminate two US government agents and a snoopy reporter to cover all his tracks. After all, an ex-FBI agent being recognised as playing for the bad guys wasn't something he wanted to become common knowledge. It could severely restrict his options. Hunting down that reporter in particular had been entertaining though. Too bad the fun had come at a cost-directly from his pay as a matter of fact.

This time though, Jake wanted a decent pay. The company had been getting rather tight with its budget lately, and he had no intention of being screwed on this one. His new boss seemed reasonable, so long as Jake did what he was told and didn't fuck around. This, if Jake was going to be perfectly honest, was always going to be a difficult call. If there was nothing Jake Hansen did better than anyone else, it was fuck around during a mission.

"Fallen asleep Hansen?"

Jake swore under his breath. "Sorry, no sir, I haven't. Just the clean northern air getting to my head. The target data will be on the link?"

"As it's been each and every time you've worked for me," the boss said without a trace of amusement. "The exception this time is that data is all you'll get. Communication will be cut to an absolute minimum to keep the Canadian authorities from intervening too soon. Also, you won't have the services of Miss Frasier for now, soall theintelligence you'll have to rely on is your own." Now Jake could almost _hear _the predatory grin on the man's face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to stick it without the valuable assistance of Dru, his computer expert. "We can't have our enemies knowing what we know, can we Mr. Hansen?"

Jake cringed slightly in his chair. The last mission hadn't exactly gone as planned-he'd gotten the job done, but only after a lengthy and expensive detour. He'd been lucky to survive that close call, considering the new boss had just been settling in and throwing his weight around like some amateur tyrant.

"Of course not sir," Jake answered as evenly as he could. "I do have one question though."

"Ask. I don't have much time to spare you," the boss said impatiently.

"Are the rumours true? Is this a live capture?" Jake picked up his coffee, wishing it had something stronger in it. Like bourbon or amphetamines maybe.

"Only if you're capable of it. Should the M-0KR prove too much for you, I think I'll reprogram the Omegas to extract the sample and combat data we need instead. Have I indulged your curiosity, Mr. Hansen?"

Jake rubbed at his stubbled chin. _No_, he thought, but wisely kept his mouth shut. "Yes sir, and thank you. I'll make contact with Relay One as soon as Dr. Cooper is dealt with."

"Good. Well, have fun now Jake, and don't cost the company too much money. The directors don't like it; they consider it their money to waste." The boss hung up abruptly, leaving Jake glaring at the now dark cell phone.

_I'll show you fun,_ he thought, standing and heading towards the backpack that held most of his equipment. _I'll catch this M-0KR and show all you bastards how things should get done. _

Jake pulled out his Desert Eagle and began to load it with nimble fingers, a scowl marring his good looks. _Fuck the expense._

_**Note:**_ Sorry 'bout the language but it's appropriate for the character. And thanks to **Hyperactive Hamster of Doom** for the review! I know this one was boring, but the next chapter will have more action, I promise. Old Ben, Grace Lake's mascot, is going to put in an appearance.


	3. Chapter Two

_Disclaimer: Yeah, I forgot to add this to the past updates, so I'll make sure to put it in from now on. Resident Evil belongs to Capcom, etc, etc. I don't own it and don't intend to make a profit from this story. Now that's done, I'll get started._

Chapter Two

_Grace Lake RCMP Detachment_

Pete Milner sipped cautiously from the Styrofoam cup as fast as he possibly could, scalding his tongue in the process. Cursing, spitting and almost spilling the entire contents all over his uniform, Pete wondered if his morning could possibly get any worse. The gloves were soaked. Now he was going to smell like coffee all day.

_Better than vomit and beer_, he told himself, thinking of how late he'd been up the night before, playing poker with some of the other guys. _From now on, like Mom used to say; not on a school night. It makes my head hurt too much to wake up the next day._

After waking up over half an hour late for work with a raging hangover, he'd had to skip breakfast at Hannah's Cafe-his usual sure fire hangover cure-to race halfway across town. He'd come perilously close to running the only red light in town-right in front of the good ol' highway patrol-only to almost run out of gas mere blocks from the RCMP building. Now he was over half an hour late for work.

_No doubt Hull and Wake will give me an earful_, Pete thought, trying to hurry up the icy footpath to the RCMP's front entrance as fast as he could without spilling what remained of his coffee. He was pushing through the front doors when he had the unfortunate luck to run into Constable Stuart Evans, who had to be the most arrogant and sanctimonious prick in D Division.

"Forget your alarm, ay Milner?" Evans asked with a sneer on his narrow face. Pete was tempted to comment on the guy's losses the previous night, but kept his trap shut. Evans was an ass kisser, and Pete wouldn't be surprised to hear the guy had permanently gotten his lips grafted to old Hull's cheeks one of these days. The last thing he needed was for Evans to go running to the Sergeant crying victim. "Or did you just forget about the briefing this morning?"

"No," Pete replied as pleasantly as he could manage, forcing a grin that felt more like gritting his teeth. "Is it over yet?"

"Not yet. Hull's still going over the final details of the Yates case. I'd get your ass in there if you don't want an official reprimand." The smug grin on Evan's face was almost too much for Pete to bear. "That sort of thing stops young constables from being anything _but_ highway patrol."

_Sure, like you'd know_, Pete thought. _You can barely drive sober._ "Sure. I don't have time for this," he said, waving Evans off. "Running late, remember?"

Evans gave Pete a disgusted glare before casually sauntering to his car. "Prick," Pete muttered under his breath before hurrying to the briefing room, pulling off his damp gloves.

Sergeant Hull was finishing up on the details of the Yates case, the school photos of three teenagers tacked onto the whiteboard, Hull's indecipherable scribble filling all available space around them. He'd obviously been through the Derek case; the photo of a smiling family and crime scene shots lined a second whiteboard pushed to the side of the room.

Pete tried his best to enter the briefing room as quiet as possible, but the Sergeant's beady eyes were on him the second he walked in, and to make things worse, Hull purposely stopped speaking the moment their eyes met over the heads of the four other officers. The others glanced over their shoulders to see Pete, most were grinning and recognising a hangover when they saw one. Fairbanks even winked as Pete approached the table. Pete suppressed giving the older constable a dirty look, covering by taking off his heavy jacket.

"Ah, Constable Milner, so good to see you've arrived. I expect you have a good reason for being late this morning?" Oh great. Hull was being his usual condescending self.

_Sounds like my goddamned English teacher_.

"Sorry sir, I slept in," he replied, knowing it sounded lame as he said it. Oh well; it was as close to truth as Hull was gonna get this morning. Unless, of course, Evans went telling tales. "It won't happen again."

"It shouldn't have happened the first time. Are you sure you aren't feeling unwell like your friend Constable Denton?" Hull asked. "He called in sick this morning, so you'll have to accompany Corporal Wake to the crime scene in his place. I trust you are feeling up to the task?"

Pete sank into a nearby chair, doing his best not to let the embarrassment show, deliberately not meeting the twin stares of the Sergeant and the Corporal.

_I've been working here for almost five years; when is he going to let up?_ Hull hadn't liked Pete since he could remember; even before Pete had left for Regina to start training, Hull had been the first to tell him he was unfit for the job. Of course that had only fired Pete up and made him even more determined to get through basic and he hadn't regretted it. It was only on mornings like this one that Pete wondered if the old guy was right about him after all.

"Of course I am. Never felt better," he replied, flicking through a nearby manila folder labelled _Yates_. A photo of a dark-haired, almost grim faced boy fell to the table. Pete picked it up and stared at the picture, wondering how this kid could be responsible for such an atrocious act. "Did the RFS expert get out to the site yesterday?"

"As I was informing the others, yes, the RFS expert concluded yesterday that the fire was started using an accelerant. Traces of gasoline were found in the wreckage. According to him it was a very amateur job. Dr. Cooper at the hospital is due to contact us today with his conclusions concerning manner of death, but it is almost a certainty that he'll find evidence of foul play, what with Yates' confession already on record."

Pete frowned at the mention of his friend's father. Dr. Cooper was another arrogant bastard, although he admittedly had a good reason to be, unlike Evans. The cocktail of drugs he prescribed for Lindsay worried Pete. The girl was taking them like candy, so Pete wasn't so sure that the respected Dr. Cooper was such a responsible guy after all. But he kept his suspicions to himself, resolving to discuss it next time he saw Lindsay.

"As a matter of fact, you and Corp. Wake can stop in at the morgue to consult with Dr. Cooper," Hull added as an afterthought. He smoothed his thick grey beard unconsciously. "After you check with the Rangers at the national park of course." Seeing Pete glance up from the file, Hull elaborated impatiently. "Apparently there have been reports that the timber wolves are breaking out of their habitat again." The Sergeant snorted. "So much for conservation ay? Protects the damn wolves and not the people. Anyhow, I need you to ask them about the boy's account. He's claiming wolves killed the others first."

Pete didn't speak, choosing to devote his attention to the file in an effort to lose Hull's interest. That worked sometimes. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of them.

"As I was saying, before Milner interrupted, James Yates confessed yesterday. You all probably read about it in this morning's paper. They didn't name him of course, but it does mean we have someone at this detachment who can't keep his mouth shut…" Pete tried hard to pay attention to Hull's droning voice, but since he'd had nothing to do with the leak, he grew more engrossed in the file. He hadn't been the one to bring Yates in, and being on highway patrol had little to do with the community side of policing the town. This was the first time he'd been involved with something outside of writing tickets and busting underage drivers, so he didn't want to make an ass of it.

Yates had confessed to the murders alright, but even Pete could see an insanity defence in the making. The teenager admitted to running through one of his friends with a poker iron, and had locked the two girls in an upstairs bedroom while he set the old cabin alight, effectively burning the girls to death. Like that wasn't crazy enough, but the kid now claimed he hadn't technically murdered them. According to his statement, the other three teenagers had already been dead.

_This is nuts, _Pete thought, still doing his best to block out Hull's condemnation of whoever had leaked the confession to the _Herald._ He narrowed his brown eyes, his brows furrowing. _What person would believe it? Attacked by "rotting" wolves and "infected" with the "zombie virus"? What court is going to take this seriously?_

He was so involved that he didn't realise the briefing was finished until Wake approached him.

"Milner? You ready?" Corporal Wake's deep voice broke his concentration.

Pete stood, putting down the file. "Yeah." He glanced over at the school photographs of the three smiling teenagers, then at the sombre photograph of James Yates.

_What a waste._

"So," he turned to the older officer, forcing a half smile to his face, "you springing for gas? My patrol car won't make to the end of the block, and I didn't have such a good run at cards last night…"

"You never do," Wake replied gruffly. He started for the door and paused. "Is that _coffee_ I can smell? What did you do, go swimming in it this morning kid?"

Pete glanced at the almost empty cup on the table, and then at his damp gloves in his hands. "Uh, no," he lied, "it isn't me. Must have been Evans."

The drive through town didn't take as long as usual, mainly because there wasn't as much traffic. Wake wasn't one for small talk, something Pete was thankful for. He had trouble keeping up with his energetic and motor-mouthed partner, Denton, so the change was much appreciated. He was careful not to drive too fast, aware the snow on the winding rural roads would send the SUV careening off. Still, Pete was rather pleased with how quickly he reached the cabins that lined the frozen expanse of Grace Lake.

"Is that it?" Pete asked as he pulled up in the clearing twenty feet from the burnt out husk.

"Certainly is," Wake replied, getting out of the car. He donned his cap and waited for Pete to climb out. "Used to be the Hartley Cabin before the old fella passed on. Too bad, huh? Don't see this kind of workmanship anymore…"

Pete climbed out after him, pulling on his spare set of gloves. His hands were always freezing during winter, so he kept plenty of spares about. "So what are we looking for?" Pete asked, slamming the door shut and heading toward the blackened ruin of the cabin, his boots crunching in the deep snow.

"Hull wants to make sure-"

A low, ominous growl stopped him. Both officers exchanged looks.

"Did you hear that?" Pete asked.

Wake's eyes had widened and focused on a point just beyond Pete. Puzzled and not a little apprehensive, Pete turned to look at the shell of the cabin.

At first he didn't see it, not with the blackened skeleton of the burnt-out cabin still standing and the enormous elms and firs shading the area. Then the growl began again, this time deeper, followed by the overpowering stench of rot and shit. Pete's mind refused to accept the hulking figure that rose on its hind legs in front of him, screamed that such a creature couldn't survive the injuries this thing had.

But he couldn't deny it. Standing eight feet tall and blindly staring in their direction, the creature lifted its brutalised muzzle high, opening its mouth wide to expose yellowed fangs. Pete didn't fail to notice the lack of frost as it sniffed the frosty air, or the dark liquid that seemed to be bubbling from its throat.

_It's not breathing. How is that possible?_ Pete had been hunting in these forests all his life, had even chanced upon the timber wolves and black bears that populated the nearby national park during whitetail hunts, but he had never, _ever, _come across an animal like this. _Everything has to breathe! It's the basic rule for life!_

The creature's eyes were an opaque white in the morning light, malicious as it swiped the air with claws already matted with gore. The heaving mass of exposed red muscle was torn and ghastly, the lack of fur making the creature almost unrecognisable. A ragged gash had torn half of its chest away, exposing rotten flesh and half a rib cage.

_What the fuck is that thing?_ But the longer he looked at the creature, the more he recognised it.

"That's not," Wake was saying in sheer disbelief, as frozen to the spot as Pete, "it can't possibly be."

"It is," Pete replied, slowly reaching for his sidearm. _How?_ He asked himself, _how?_

"What's wrong with him?" Wake asked, as if he expected Pete to know. "What is it, rabies or something?"

Pete shook his head, not taking his eyes from the hulking, decaying form of Old Ben. The bear roared again, this time sending a foul spray of clotted blood and pus into the air. The rotten stench got stronger. Pete had to physically resist the temptation to cover this mouth. Doing his best not to bring up last night's dinner, Pete took a step back slowly as he unclipped his holster, his eyes drawn to the exposed bone on the thing's skull between the torn and ruined ears, the grey tissue that had to be-

"That's not rabies," Pete replied, pulling out his handgun and flicked the safety, aiming directly for the roaring monstrosity's mouth, full of yellow fangs. "That's James Yates' infection. That bear's dead."

"We should get back to the car and get the hell out of here," Wake said, drawing his own weapon slowly. "He's not lookin' too friendly."

Pete agreed wholeheartedly with that statement. The bear was watching them like they were potential prey. Growing up around Grace Lake, Pete was interested in hunting like any other red-blooded male, and had picked up a fair bit of experience over the years. He'd even encountered Old Ben a few summers ago during a black bear hunt further north. Shouting had been enough to drive him off then, but Pete seriously doubted that tactic would work this time.

Still, he had to try. The animal was very obviously infected with something, but Pete didn't want to kill him. Old Ben was a much-loved mascot around town. Pete wasn't keen to be known as the old guy's killer-even if he'd been infected.

"Back off!" he shouted as loud as he could, aware how pathetic he sounded. _Damn hangover_. "Go back to the national park! I don't want to shoot you!"

Old Bean roared again, the sound echoing about them.

"He's not going anywhere," Pete commented over his shoulder to Wake.

He heard Wake cock the hammer of his revolver. "No shit son," he retorted. "Gonna blow its head off before it decides to charge us or do you want to read him his rights first?"

Trust Wake to keep a sharp tongue during a crisis. Pete kept the semi-auto trained on the bear as it dropped back to four paws, snarling in their direction. Old Ben's skinned head was a large enough target, but Pete wished he was carrying the shotgun he had in his SUV. A 12-gauge shotgun would go an awful long way to help him feel secure and less like shitting his pants.

Old Ben burst through the blackened skeletal frame of the cabin easily, sending charred timber and snow flying in a blurred spray. Pete squeezed the trigger, aiming for the tooth-filled maw.

Simultaneously, Pete and Wake began firing at the charging bear. It should have been impossible for the badly damaged black bear to move, let alone cross the clearing so fast, but he did. Pete began to retreat towards the car, certain Wake would be doing the same. Fighting back his instinctive terror, he continued to fire, wondering why the damn thing wouldn't go down.

Old Ben charged at Wake, the gut-wrenching smell growing the more pungent the closer he got. Pete kept shooting, aware he'd already gone through five bullets and hoping to God that they'd hit their target. The roar of the beast and the firearms deafened Pete; all he could do was concentrate on Old Ben and squeeze the trigger.

Wake was yelling something at him, but Pete couldn't hear. He was concentrating on the deformed creature attacking them. He watched, sickened, as one bullet smacked wetly into the bear's skull, sending grey matter across the snow but not slowing the bear one bit. The thing was determined to get Wake; changing direction slightly, it absorbed the shots fired from Wake's revolver and plunged on, ignoring Pete entirely.

"Get back!" Pete yelled, not sure Wake could even hear him. "It's after you! Wake-"

Wake continued shooting until the chamber was empty, then began to run for the car, only feet from the crazed bear intent on tearing him apart. With four rounds left in his pistol, Pete knew he had to make them count. He stopped and targeted the creature's exposed brain tissue.

_Please please please_, he thought desperately, the adrenaline surging through his body as he faced down Old Ben.

The bullets ripped into the exposed cavity with dull thuds, tearing away bone and rotten flesh. Roaring furiously but undeterred, Old Ben took a swipe, knocking Wake to the ground easily. The Corporal's scream rang through the clearing, prompting Pete to take his last shot, aiming for the now gaping wound on the bear's head.

_BANG!_

Old Ben staggered forward, his claws still aimed for Wake. Desperate, Pete ejected the empty clip and reached for the spare he kept in his utility belt. He couldn't slap it in fast enough; Old Ben's claws descended and a terrible shredding sound filled the clearing. Blood splattered from the bear's paws as it leaned its immense bulk over Wake, filthy fangs exposed and dripping with yellowed saliva.

Pete squeezed the trigger in quick succession, unable to endure Wake's agonised screams as Old Ben's teeth ravaged his body.

The third bullet hit the bear's left eye, sending it sprawling backwards. Pete took the opportunity to look at what remained of his superior.

Wake was a bloody, faceless mess. Pete gagged and forcibly dragged his eyes from the corpse and saw Old Ben now regarding him. The bear's head was even more ruined, the bullets taking their toll on the decomposing flesh. The gory hole that had been its left eye was leaking fluids onto the snow.

_I've only got six rounds left,_ Pete thought, _and I'm next._

Old Ben roared again and started in Pete's direction.


	4. Chapter Three

_Disclaimer: Resident Evil belongs to Capcom, etc, etc. I don't own it and don't intend to make a profit from this story. _

Chapter Three

_Keller's Bar_

Wendy Sorenson sighed and handed her boss another beer. It might be against the conditions of their license, but she doubted that Dean had never shown any regard for authority in his life. The bartender grunted his thanks and turned back to the newspaper, scratching at his thick sandy beard and frowning over a grainy photograph of a grim-faced boy.

She cast a glance about the bar. Keller's was almost empty; only the hard drinkers emerged before noon so the locals were looking pretty damn seedy. Wendy smirked to herself. No doubt her fiancée and her best friend would fit in well among the winos if either of them to stumble in.

_I wonder how they're both doing,_ she wondered, bending to empty another ashtray. Neither Pete nor Lindsay was known for their ability to function while hung over. No doubt Pete was already sniping at his fellow officers and Lindsay had probably crawled back to bed.

Wendy dumped the dirty ashtrays into the sink and started scrubbing, wrinkling her nose at the smell of ash. Most of the time she didn't mind working at Keller's, but some of the chores Dean had her doing really sucked.

_Oh well. I won't have to put up with it much longer. I'll get married to Pete in May and waltz right out of here._ Oh well, that was the dream at least. Wendy was realistic to know she wouldn't be waltzing out of Keller's for next ten years if she and Pete bought that place on the outskirts of town. Pete's salary alone wouldn't cover a mortgage.

Wendy began stacking the ashtrays beside the sink, watching the regulars in their usual habits. The usual unemployed miners were already parked at the bar, downing beers despite the early hour and commiserating. Huddled around a table near the entrance were the low lives Dean refused to put tabs up for. Particularly Marlene King; Wendy had seen the middle aged woman put miners, cops and truckers to shame, downing more alcohol than Wendy thought possible for the human body to consume. Marlene caught Wendy's eye and lifted her empty pitcher, shaking it so the dregs sloshed onto the table.

_Not until I see the cash, sweetheart,_ Wendy thought to herself, deliberately averting her gaze and focusing on stacking ashtrays. She didn't want to antagonise Marlene, not when the woman had a reputation for brawling and spending more time in the RCMP's cells than anyone else in town. Getting into a fight with her wasn't particularly appealing. But neither was getting her pay docked when Marlene failed to pay up.

The door opening caught her attention, and she appraised the burly man who paused to brush snow off his dark jacket and pants with a curious eye. When he glanced up, Wendy realised with a start that he was old enough to be her father. A little embarrassed-and darkly noting how Dean snickered over his paper at her-Wendy plastered a perky smile onto her face.

"Hi there," she greeted as the newcomer approached the bar. "What can I get for ya?" She indicated the slouched miners. "Don't let the time fool you. We start serving at nine."

The stranger laughed politely-a deep, chesty sound that made Wendy think of Old Ben the town mascot for some odd reason-and shook his head with a good-natured smile.

"Sorry but it's a little early for me. But I could stand a coffee if you serve it." He took a seat at the bar, pulling off his ski cap and scratching at his scalp. There were dark smudges and lines under his dark eyes, the greying stubble on his chin and cheeks making him look older than he probably was. Wendy thought he could have sat down with the miners and fit in perfectly, his exhaustion echoing their misery. "It's been a hell of a drive up here."

Wendy gave a sympathetic shrug and pulled out a mug, standing it beneath the espresso machine Dean had bought last summer for the tourists while reaching for a foil packet of espresso beans with her other hand.

"That road's a nightmare," she agreed. Wendy tore open the packet with her teeth and poured the beans into the machine before switching it on. "No one should be on it during winter in my opinion. It's a fatal accident waiting to happen. Anyway, I'm Wendy." She leaned over the bar and offered the stranger her hand.

He took it and returned her smile. "I'm Barry."

"What brings you to Grace Lake then?" Wendy asked, using the standard line she gave tourists.

"I'm actually here to catch up with an old friend," Barry replied, leaning to take something out of his jacket pocket. "I was in the next town over and realised I should drop by before I head south." Barry made a wry face as he handed over an old photograph. "It's been a while since we last spoke. I know he moved out here, but I'm not sure where he's living now."

Wendy took the photograph carefully. "Well, if he's a local I'll know him. We're the only bar around for miles. But I've gotta warn you, he might not live here anymore. Since the mine closed down last year people have been fleeing this town like it's a sinking ship. Did you see all the closed business on the way in? If it wasn't for the sawmill and the plantation this town'd be dea-" She abruptly stopped and glanced up, an amused expression playing on her face, her eyes glinting merrily. "You can't be serious. _He's_ your friend? No offence, but I didn't think he had any."

Dean put down his newspaper. "Who is it?" he asked gruffly, craning to see. Wendy handed the photo to her boss reluctantly, dropping her gaze for another glance.

It had to have been taken years ago, before Dr. Cooper started losing all his hair and picked up all those lines on his thin face, but Wendy was sure it was him. He had a white doctor's coat on and the same bastard look on his face. Wendy didn't know how the doctor did it, but he managed to look snide, arrogant and cold all at once. It was really quite a feat for one expression, she thought.

"Norman isn't the easiest of people to get along with," Barry said with a grin. "Don't let his arrogance put you off."

Wendy rolled her eyes as she looked up. "It's not just the arrogance that puts me off, don't worry. Everything else about the good doctor contributes as well." The machine made a high-pitched beep and Wendy flicked the switch, sending a gurgling stream of brown liquid into the cup. "You take milk or sugar?"

"No milk, two sugars," was the answer. Wendy tapped in two sachets of sugar and set the cup in front of him.

"Well, if you're looking for Dr. Cooper, then I'd say he'd be at work, over at the hospital," she told Barry, leaning against the counter. "He's always there."

The newcomer took an apprehensive sip of the coffee. Wendy couldn't blame him-the stuff wasn't exactly café worthy. Obviously he thought better of it than Wendy did, because Barry quickly took another, coming close to scalding himself as he set the cup down.

"That sounds like Norman," he said. "He's always been a workaholic. So where is this hospital? I'll stop by and say hello."

"Over on Maple street," Wendy replied, noting that Marlene King was staggering over the bar. "You really can't miss it. The big grey building with a helipad on the roof. Look, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to-"

"That's okay," Barry said. "I really should get going anyway." He stood and took a last gulp of hot coffee.

Wendy had already grabbed a fresh pitcher and was already pouring it for Marlene when a sudden scream rang through the bar, knocking the pitcher from her hands. It shattered on the polished wooden floor, beer saturating her black pants and pooling in foamy puddles around her feet. Before she could glance up and question what was happening, a second, shrill and strangled scream followed.

The commotion was focused around the miners. Chairs were being thrown back as they stood, drinks spilled and exclaimed and surprised cries clamouring through the bar. Wendy was about to check on it when Dean stood and left the bar. She breathed a silent sigh of relief, glad she hadn't been forced to break up whatever scuffle the miners had imagined amongst themselves. She bent to pick up some of the larger pieces of glass, but Dean's raised voice startled her a second time. Carelessly slicing her thumb on a shard, Wendy swore under her breath and stood, her eyes scanning the commotion for a cause.

That was when she saw it.

Blood bubbled from between one miner's hands, both clutched desperately at his throat. Wendy vaguely recognised him-Joe, always ordered Scotch when he was in a lively mood-and thought she recognised the tall, lanky man with blood smeared all over the lower half of his face, a feral, almost insane gleam in his eyes. Dean was attempting to hold him back while the other miners came to the assistance of the injured man, but even big burly Dean was finding it difficult to keep a grip.

"Someone call the cops!" one of the barfly's shouted.

"Hey, girlie, that man needs an ambulance!" Marlene King screeched pointedly at Wendy.

Wendy reached for the phone mounted on one of the bar struts, dialling 9-1-1 while watching with disbelieving eyes as the injured man was shouldered onto the cleared space used for dancing, a slick trail of blood trailing along behind him. In her ear, the phone dialled once, twice, three, four times…

"Come on!" she shouted impatiently, wondering why it was that whenever there was a real emergency it always took forever to get help.

Dean fought to keep his hold as the lanky, crazed man attempted to lunge toward Joe and the others huddled around him. "Get a hold of yourself son!" he yelled in his deep voice, not bothering to be careful about manhandling the guy. "The cops been called yet?"

"I'm trying!" Wendy cried, a hint of hysteria colouring her voice. The ring tone was still trilling in her ear. Over on the floor, Joe moaned, a reminder that he was going to bleed to death if she didn't get connected-

Shit, she'd worked at Keller's for over a year and _never_ seen one patron bite-bite!-into another's throat. She'd cleaned up teeth and the like after brawls back when the mine was still in business, but none of those conflicts had ever had this kind of brutality about them. Disturbed by the sight of Joe's blood pooling on the wooden floor and covering the hands of the people trying to help, Wendy had to turn away, forcing her gaze on the floor to avoid the mirror that ran along the length of the bar.

"Hey!" Dean's shocked cry made Wendy's head snap up, the ring tone still echoing hollowly in her ear.

"Dean, you okay?"

"Grab a hold of 'im!" Dean shouted. "The bastard's bitten me!"

Wendy's heart thudded in her chest as she turned. Dean's outraged expression would have had her laughing if it had been any other time, but the trail of blood that trickled down the length of his arm made her stomach feel strangely hollow and her legs weak.

_Don't pass out_, she told herself, trying to keep a hold of her composure but suspecting she failing-badly. _Keep it together._

The man grabbed Marlene King, his hands tearing cruelly into the squealing woman's hair. He dragged the thrashing woman toward him, ignoring the fists of the four or five men who tried to drag him away from her.

"Where are the god-damned cops?" someone shouted.

"I'm _trying!_" Wendy shrieked frantically, all semblance of control lost in her panic. "No one's picking up!"

That was, of course, when someone did pick up.

"911 Dispatch, what's your emergency?" the tired voice on the other end inquired dutifully.

"We need an ambulance at Keller's Bar! There's been a fight-oh God, he's bleeding on the floor…"

"Ma'am, I need you to stay calm and tell me what's happened," the operator said, her professionalism taking over. "Who's bleeding on the floor?"

"One of the patrons attacked another-and the bartender, and he's going to attack someone else if you don't send the cops here," Wendy cried, turning away from the scene before she threw up. "Please, we need paramedics and police as soon as possible-"

Somewhere behind her, Marlene screamed and the others shouted obscenities and indistinguishable curses as the struggle continued. There was a scuffle, and the sound of more chairs being knocked over. Someone shouted her name and Wendy glanced up, seeing Gav approach too late to escape. She skidded back, cutting her knees and slicing open the fabric of her pants on the forgotten shards of glass.

"The local RCMP and paramedics have been notified and are on their way," the operator told her, the voice almost lost amid Gav's shriek. "I need you to stay on the line and keep talking to me. Is the perpetrator still on the premises?"

"Yes," Wendy answered fearfully, her cut hand desperately grabbing for the baseball bat she knew Dean kept behind the register. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the abrupt sound of a handgun rang through the bar.

Screaming with shock and dropping the receiver, Wendy ducked down, her hands slipping on the beer-covered floor. The tiny voice of the dispatch operator shrieked at her, but Wendy made no move to grab for the phone. Fearing the worst-and waiting for another shot-she kept perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe.

"It's alright now," a voice said in the sudden silence. "It's taken care of."

And so it was. Gav's body was sprawled in front of her, his blood mingling with the spilled beer and staining the foam a pale pink. Wendy let out a terrified cry and stared disbelievingly at the man's body. His legs twitched a few times, making Wendy flinch and scramble away on all fours, not trusting her legs to support her.

She edged along the bar, slowly peeking her head around the corner. The others were standing, aghast, some with blood-splattered faces and disbelieving stares directed at the lone figure standing near the doors.

A revolver was in Barry's hands, a determined expression on his face as he regarded Gav's still-twitching body. His pleasant, fatherly demeanour had been dropped, replaced by something Wendy could only call stern authority. Despite the fact Barry had just shot Gav point-blank in the face, the man didn't look crazy or even angry, which scared Wendy even more.

_Who kills someone over a bar fight?_ She asked herself, bewilderment warring with fear. Another, irrational thought came to mind. _How did Lindsay's father end up with such a crazy friend?_

"That man was infected," Barry said, slowly lowering the revolver. He muttered something incomprehensible under his breath that Wendy was too far away to catch, and then slipped the revolver into an unseen shoulder holster. His gaze settled on Joe and the men surrounding him. "And anyone who got bitten or scratched by him is infected too."

Most-including Wendy-stared at Barry like he was crazy. Others-mostly those around the fallen Joe-shrank back, staring at blood stained hands with a degree of horror that hadn't been present a moment earlier.

Wendy couldn't find the courage to stand, or even speak, but Dean did.

"Are you tellin' me that man there's like a rabid dog?" he demanded, his bearded face red. "An' you jus' put 'im down like that? Shit, you're as crazy as he was!"

"It's no lie," Barry replied calmly. "I don't know how it could be…but here it is."

Dean didn't believe him-the belligerent expression on the bar owner's face attested to that-but Wendy found herself staring at Gav's pale face and wondered if the stranger was right.

She was about to actually stand and ask the stranger how he could possibly know that Gav was sick, but that was when the RMCP arrived, handguns aimed at Barry.

"What on God's green Earth happened in this shithole?" Sergeant Hull demanded as he surveyed the damage. His gaze stopped on the two fallen bodies and a small, unpleasant grin formed on his angular face when he saw the revolver in Barry's hands.

"You're under arrest," Hull said, the grin turning into a sneer. "Dean-your bar's gonna be closed for business today."

"Fine by me," Dean retorted. "Where are the paramedics? My damn arm's hurtin' and Joe there's bleedin' to death." Frozen in her spot behind the bar, Wendy watched as Barry calmly handed over his firearm and turned his attention to Hull.

"You're making a mistake," he said in a voice that disturbed Wendy more than any of the violence so far. He sounded so confident that he was right. Confident enough to make Wendy's gut clench. "This town has been infected by the same virus that decimated Raccoon City. Umbrella's already been here. What deal's been made here? _What have you done?_"

Hull laughed, and one of the other officers guffawed along with him. Wendy narrowed her eyes, recognising Stuart Evans, the same guy Pete had so many problems with. The one that moved in to handcuff Barry didn't laugh, his attention warily focused on the bigger man in case Barry decided to put up a resistance.

"Evans, get this fellow into a cell and out of my face," Hull instructed in a tone that brooked no argument. "And when Wake and Milner get back, send them down here. There's gonna be a whole lot of paperwork waitin' for them. I want everyone else focused on the Yates case."

"Virus? Honestly, what is this, nutcase season?" Marlene demanded, her high-pitched voice grating on Wendy's ears. "What virus makes people bite each other, I wanna know."

"Maybe it's the Yates defence," Evans cracked, drawing a scowl from his superior.

"It's the T-virus," Barry said in a low voice, allowing the officer to handcuff him. The authority seemed to leech from his face, and the etched exhaustion returned. "You have to start checking the community now, before it starts to spread-"

"Yeah, sure, tell us all about it back at the detachment," Evans sneered as they led Barry from Keller's. The wails of the town's only ambulance suddenly picked up on the edge of Wendy's hearing and for the first time since the commotion had broke out, she felt a little safer.

_I wish Pete was here_, she thought longingly, knowing her strong fiancée would know what to say to help her feel a bit better after today. When Hull called for everyone who wasn't injured to prepare to make statements about the 'incident' they'd witnessed, Wendy stood.

Wendy didn't notice the small tickle in the back of her throat, or how she absently rubbed at her eyes, which were starting to itch a little. Wendy didn't connect these tiny symptoms to the deadly disease she'd picked up from the immensely minute traces of virus in the pool of blood that had mixed in with the beer she'd spilled on the floor. It hadn't entered her mind that the cuts on her hands and knees were perfect openings for her death. She didn't know that tiny, artificially-created time-bombs were dissolving their crystal walls to sink their deadly cargo into her red blood cells.

She didn't know that almost every other person in the bar was infected with the T-virus either.

And she certainly didn't know that in a handful of hours, they were all going to be reduced to mindless, ravaging creatures that would make Gav's penchant for biting people look tame.

**Note: **Thanks to **Squirrel54** for the review. It's really encouraging!


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

_Camping Grounds _

"You sure we shouldn't check out the cabins first?" Matt asked Dirk as he climbed out of the car. He pulled on his bright orange baseball cap and glanced about the snow-carpeted camping grounds. There was nothing disturbing the morning peace-but them. Matt frowned, not at all reassured. "That was where it all happened-"

Dirk shook his blonde head and playfully pushed Ian out of his way, knocking his friend into the car. "Don't you think the cops are gonna be suspicious if they find us going through the cabins with guns?" He shook his head and gave Matt an incredulous look. "Anyway, don't you remember what Jamie said about the wolves near the camping grounds?"

"Don't remind me," Ian groaned, slamming his door shut. "I wish you two hadn't told me. It gave me nightmares man."

"You're such a wimp," Gary interjected.

"Yeah, don't tell me _you_ didn't freak out," Ian argued. "I saw how you were watchin' Jesse when we picked Matt up. Didn't see _you_ getting out of the car in any hurry."

Matt ignored their chatter and watched as Dirk unlocked the trunk and propped it open. His mind played on the horrific tale Jamie had spun for them yesterday afternoon when they'd been allowed a brief visit. He glanced about again. The snow-covered grounds were still silent. But the certainty that something was out there, waiting for them, didn't go away.

Dirk pulled out Matt's hockey bag and crouched next to it, waiting for the others to gather round.

"So how many did ya get?" Ian asked Matt, nudging his shoulder.

"Three," Matt answered, crossing his arms.

"Dude, there's four of us," Gary pointed out.

"I've got my dad's shotgun," Dirk explained with a grin on his upturned face. "Stole it last night. I don't any of these lame rifles."

"Sweet," Gary grinned, brushing his fringe from his eyes. "I wanna have a go."

Matt and Ian exchanged wary looks. Gary was always the one who got carried away and started showing off. In Matt's opinion, he wasn't really a person to be trusted with _any_ weapon, let alone a shotgun. Matt could imagine Gary accidentally shooting himself-or one of them-without any difficulty.

"Dirk, you're dad's a cop," Ian pointed out hesitantly. "If you get caught with that-"

"I won't get caught. He's too busy trying to lock away our friend, remember?" Dirk unzipped the hockey bag, revealing the three Remington hunting rifles among Matt's elbow guards, gloves and knee pads. "And it's not like I don't know how to use it. He showed me himself."

"Not so you can go tramping about through the woods like a wannabe hero," Ian argued. "If the four of us get caught, we'll be joining Jamie down at the detachment you know. None of us have licenses to use these guns-"

"Would you shut up?" Gary asked, smacking Ian on the back of the head. "I thought you were all for proving Jamie's innocent."

"And blowing away some zombies," Dirk added. He pulled out one of the rifles and handed it to Gary, who stood closest to him.

"You got second thoughts about all this?" Matt asked Ian, noting his friend's troubled expression. It echoed the same sense of uneasiness that was inching it way along his spine. "It's okay if-"

"Wait a minute, no it's not!" Gary cried. "You can't wimp out now!"

"If he doesn't want to-" Matt began, but was abruptly interrupted by Dirk, who had pulled out the second rifle and was offering it to Ian.

The other boy kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his red parka and made no move to accept the weapon. He deliberately avoided the other's gazes.

Matt wanted to say something. But when he opened his mouth to tell Dirk and Gary to be fair, he remembered how Jamie had looked when he'd told them about the wolves who had torn Casey apart not a hundred yards from here. His best friend had been so pale, with that dull, glass-eyed look on his face. There was no trace of Jamie's usual composure. Sitting hunched in the interview room, Jamie's voice cracked as he spoke.

_"Her screams…that was the worst…Casey kept screaming for us to come back, that we couldn't leave her…but we couldn't. It sounds awful I know but we couldn't go back. We would have died too…" _

"Fine, stay with the car," Dirk snapped. Matt found the rifle being shoved into his hands and watched as Dirk stood and stormed off to retrieve the shotgun from the trunk. Gary shook his head and bent to pick up a box of ammo.

"I-I can't," Ian tried to explain to Gary, but his friend wasn't listening. He stuffed the ammo into his jacket's pockets and followed Dirk, leaving only Matt to face pale-faced Ian, whose guilty expression only made Matt feel uneasier. He glanced over his shoulder, scanning the tree-line for any movement.

There was nothing but trees and snow.

"It's not that I don't want to help Jamie out," Ian explained, the desperation in his reedy voice echoing the tiny voice inside of Matt that screamed _GET OUT! NOW! RUN AWAY! JAMIE'S RIGHT, THERE'S SOMETHING _BAD_ IN THOSE WOODS…DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FACE IT?_

"I know man," Matt replied in a tight voice, feeling terrible when his friend's face fell. "Just stay with the car. Make sure nothing happens to it, okay?"

Ian nodded mutely. His eyes widened when Matt bent down and picked up the remaining rifle and shoved it unceremoniously into Ian's hands. The other boy tried to hand it back to him, but Matt shook his head and took a step back.

"Keep it. There's…" He struggled to find the words to articulate exactly how he felt. He was frightened, but that wasn't something one guy just tells another. He wanted to warn Ian, make certain he'd just stay in the car, not try anything brave to prove himself. But if he said any of that, then wouldn't Ian have a fit and probably set out to do just that?

"You changed your mind?" Dirk called from the car, pulling out his father's shotgun and loading it with a familiarity that Matt hadn't suspected he'd possessed.

Ian swallowed, but bravely shook his head. "I'll stick with the car," he said, much to Matt's relief.

Dirk and Gary sniggered, but Matt tried to give Ian a reassuring smile-and failed.

"We won't be that long," he said, feeling like a sissy but unable to crush the part of him that felt sorry for Ian and even wanted to join him in wimping out. "Just read that book you got from the library."

Ian nodded and smiled thinly, the rifle cradled awkwardly in his arms. Matt picked up his hockey bag and dumped it into the trunk, grabbing a box of ammunition before Dirk slammed it shut on his fingers.

"Just don't sulk if we come back with all the proof we need to clear Jamie," Gary called as the three of them began to trek through the snow towards the treeline.

"And don't piss yourself if the wolves come for ya," Dirk added snidely, and together he and Gary began to howl, their voices echoing through the empty space.

"Screw you," Ian called after them. Matt laughed when he realised that Ian was giving them the finger.

"What a bitch," Dirk muttered, his venomous words losing their edge when spoken through a cloud of frosted air.

"Leave him alone," Matt admonished, feeling like his mother for berating Dirk. "We should be paying attention anyway. Don't want any of these things sneaking up on us…right?"

Dirk threw Matt a sour look, but must have conceded that he had a point because he shut up and started watching their surroundings as they climbed over the low wooden barrier that marked the beginning of the Far Eastern Trail, a tourist attraction in summer and a killer trek in winter, even on a clear day like today. The three crunched through the snow in companionable silence, the rifles held reassuringly in their hands.

The quiet gave Matt time to consider something that had happened to him when he was a kid. It had been playing on his mind since coming out here, like it did whenever his dad dragged him out into the National Forest to go hunting.

When Matt had been much younger-before the new Public School had been built, so Matt guessed he would have been about six or seven-the Grace Lake elementary school teachers took their students up into the National Park, for a 'nature day', so the students could learn about the environment and wilderness safety from the park rangers. There were puppets involved-the sort put together with felt and a hot glue gun-and worksheets, and stickers with a cartoon representation of Old Ben ("Old Ben Wants YOU to Be Bear-y Nice to Bears!") that found their way on every surface possible. But what Matt remembered the most was the hike every class had gone on, xeroxed worksheets in hand as the children were led in small chatting groups into the National Forest.

It hadn't been this trail, but the one on the other side of the lake, up near the ranger station and the tourist's centre. Tame, really, and perfectly safe considering the immediate grounds weren't densely packed with trees or frequented by local wildlife. It was supposed to be a prime example of local wilderness, where the schoolchildren could observe insects, plants and animals and scrawl their observations onto the worksheets. There shouldn't have been any problems. But all the same, Matt had somehow managed to get himself separated from the others.

Alone for what was probably only twenty minutes but felt like endless hours to Matt, he'd done exactly as his xeroxed worksheet stated in bold print under _BE SAFE!_ He had clumsily read the page, but mainly rememberedwhat it saidfrom earlier, during the Old Ben sketch with the puppets.

_If you find yourself lost, don't move. Call for a teacher, or a parent. Wait for help to find you. _

He didn't move. He called for his teacher, Miss Dunstan, until his voice went scratchy and his throat got sore. He waited.

But no one came.

It was easy for a little kid to imagine being lost in the forest forever. Even as a little boy, Matt doubted being bear-y nice would stop animals from hurting him. Matt cried, thoroughly convinced he'd never see his family, friends or pets again. It had been terribly lonely and frightening to just sit and wait, shouting for his teacher. His childish imagination played out all kinds of horrible things that could happen while he wsa alone-a bear could find him, or a wolf, or maybe he'd just be lost out here forever…

Before the ranger came to find him, Matt had been calling for his parents tearfully, promising to be good if they came to get him.

Thinking on it, Matt likened the same sense to what he was feeling now. It was an entirely different situation-seventeen-year-old Matt was carrying his dad's Remington for a start-but it felt the same. Vulnerable. Frightened of the unknown creatures that lurked beyond the tree line. Unsure of ever returning to civilisation.

He glanced at Dirk and Gary. _Do they feel like this too?_ He wondered. Then he felt foolish. Dirk certainly had no reservations-the other boy's swagger left no room for uncertainty-and Gary would follow Dirk's lead like he had back at the car. There'd be no confessions of fear on this trip. Not unless Matt wanted to find himself laughed at and mocked like poor Ian.

"Hey-d'ya see that?" Gary suddenly asked, stopping on the edge of the path and pointing into the trees.

"See what?" Dirk demanded, hefting the shotgun up. "There's nothin' out there."

"Over there-see that tree? No dumbass, _that_ one." He pointed towards a rocky outcrop a dozen feet away, where a stunted and twisted tree struck out in the densely forested surrounds. Matt followed his line of sight, but Dirk seemed to be having trouble.

"What? It's a tree." Dirk snorted and slapped a hand on Gary's shoulder. "You're imagining things."

"What'd you see?" Matt asked, doing his best to keep his voice from cracking. A crunch behind him made him swivel abruptly, scanning for movement. There was nothing among the trees and undergrowth.

Matt sighed, adjusting his hold on the rifle. It no longer felt so reassuring. He felt like he had as a kid.

"There was something over there. It looked like a deer, but…." Gary broke off, his features twisting with confusion.

"Let's check it out," Dirk suggested, his mouth twisting into a leer. "Maybe we can blow away Bambi so Gary doesn't have nightmares."

"Hey, shut up man," Gary retorted. "You didn't see it. It looked like something from an abattoir."

"Jamie said they were wolves, not fuckin' deer," Dirk argued heatedly. "I'm not screwin' around 'cos you got spooked by some whitetail."

Matt kept his mouth shut, but squinted towards the twisted tree and the shadowed rocks. _Could there have been something watching us_? He asked himself.

"Forget it. We should keep going 'til we hit the river," Dirk said, continuing down the track without them. "We'll be bound to find traces of the wolves down there. Jamie said they had to run across the ford to get back to their cabin."

"I saw something over there," Gary insisted, following. "No shit man."

"Whatever," Dirk replied.

Matt followed after a moment too. He only went two steps before the hair on the back of his neck began to stand on end. His grip involuntarily tightened on the rifle and for a second, he thought he heard undergrowth snapping in the distance. The teenager paused, straining to isolate the sound from Dirk and Gary's banter and heavy steps through the snow.

"Hey, you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?" Dirk asked without turning or stopping.

A loud _crack_ sounded off to their right.

Dirk and Gary stopped dead in their tracks.

"That," Matt replied flatly, nodding his head to the right.

"I told you," Gary added, his cheeks beginning to get flushed.

The sound began to grow louder, the rustling closer. All three teenagers brought their rifles up, ready to shoot anything that emerged. Matt tried not to let his sense of unease distract him, but it was hard. He thought of Jamie, and what would happen to him, and for a terrible second, wanted more than anything to just take off. Let Dirk and Gary bag the wolves and prove Jamie's story.

Dirk's voice dragged him from his guilty thoughts.

"Wait 'til you've got a good shot," Dirk warned them. "We shouldn't waste ammo."

"Sure _Mom_," Gary sniped. "You wanna take the shot for me too?"

The undergrowth nearby stirred. Gary shot first. Like Matt had suspected, the boy was overeager to shoot and his aim went wide. A low hanging tree branch sent a shower of powdery snow falling on them, making all three take a few steps back.

"Could you suck any harder?" Dirk demanded to know, giving Gary a hard cork on the bicep. "What did I just freakin' tell you man?"

The undergrowth rustled again. _Obviously something heavy out there_, Matt judged, trying to calm himself and prepare to shoot. Dirk and Gary's arguing threatened to distract him, but he focused solely on the approaching sound.

The delicately built deer emerged from the thick winter foliage, startling Dirk and Gary and making both swear and jump back a step. Matt breathed a sigh of relief and lowered the rifle, throwing a thin grin over at Dirk, who had started to laugh nervously.

"Nothin' but 'tail," Matt said weakly.

"Reckon I could pop Bambi from here?" Gary asked casually, bringing the rifle's scope to eye-level.

"Don't be a dumb shit," Dirk said.

Matt was about to add his objection when the undergrowth began to crack and snap again, but this time stirring more violently. The deer was about to leap away when a tall, four-legged shape burst suddenly from the foliage, knocking the startled doe midstride and sending her skidding into the path, knocking Matt off his feet.

Forced to drop the rifle to bring up his arms to defend his face from the whitetail's kicking, bucking legs, Matt rolled away, snow blinding him momentarily.

There was a loud _BOOM_, followed by a series of smaller rifle _cracks_. But amid the fire, there was something else, another sound Matt couldn't identify. It was a screech that sounded clogged up, like a little kid with a phlegm-filled nose screaming at the tops ofits lungs. Matt could hear Dirk and Gary's excited shouts as he and the doe scrambled for their feet. Scared of being either kicked in the face or shot by one of his friends, the teenager fought to crawl away.

Wiping snow from his eyes while searched half-blind for his rifle, Matt was almost deafened by the shotgun's second _BOOM_. It the aftermath, he heard Dirk ask Gary _"What the fuck is that?"_ in a voice he'd never heard his friend use before-slightly awed but mostly confused, neither traits Dirk was known for-before Gary shot the rifle in answer.

Beside Matt, the doe finally got to her feet, but staggered away only a handful of feet before collapsing again.

"What the fuck _was_ that?" Dirk repeated.

Matt's vision finally cleared-and he saw the blood-stained snow about his hands and knees first.

Following the trail of blood and clumps of gross, dark matter that steamed in the morning light, Matt saw the doe, kicking, twitching and cut open on the path not five feet away.

He opened his mouth indignantly to ask his friends why they'd felt the need to shoot the deer when he realised that her injuries weren't caused by either shotgun or rifle.

Matt picked up his rifle and turned to stand-then couldn't find the strength.

Lying amongst the leaf matter and undergrowth was another whitetail.

This one was a stag. Or at least, the remains of what Matt thought might have been a stag.

For one thing, the stag no longer had a pelt. Instead, it's exposed, decayed muscles and tendons were coated with encrusted yellow mucus and patches of dried blood. The smell was bad-Gary had to cover his mouth when he began to approach the stag, and from where Matt was kneeling, he could smell it too. It was curious mix of rot and shit that seemed to hang in the clear morning air about them.

It was antlers that caught Matt's fascination. They shared absolutely no resemblance to the ones he'd seen mounted throughout the town, adorning riverstone fireplaces and musty old studies. These antlers had no natural grace. They jutted out cruelly, thicker and more brutal than any real stag could possess, the ends curving sharply in a manner that promised pain. From this angle, the snatches of torn flesh caught on that thorned set of antlers were visible.

But what got to Matt the most wasn't the skinned appearance, or the smell, or the antlers.

It was the teeth exposed by the stag's open mouth, more a snarl than the frozen shock Matt had seen on dead deer before.

They weren't the flat teeth of an animal that eats plant life. Something had happened to them. Changed them. The teeth that Matt stared at were now sharp and long.

Fangs covered in grimy blood.

Unable to cope, Matt leaned over and puked up his breakfast.

"Jamie's right," Dirk said, trying to ignore Matt's noises. "That animal's been infected by something. I'd say the wolves got to him before we did."

"Did you see how that thing jumped out?" Gary asked, using his brain for once and cautiously keeping his distance. "It gutted her like...like..."

"A pig," Dirk finished soberly. "Think we could get it back to the car? If we've got this as proof-"

The thought of dragging the stag carcass back to the camping ground made Matt's stomach convulse painfully.

"Would you shut up?" Dirk complained down to Matt. "You're making me feel sick worse than _that_ does."

"I'll tell ya one thing," Gary said, an adrenaline-fuelled grin on his face as he reloaded the hunting rifle with bullets he produced from his pocket. "He sure ain't Bambi."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back at the car, Ian was comfortable and safe.

That was, for the moment at least.

When Dirk and the others had left, he'd climbed into the car. Still feeling creeped out by the silent campground, Ian had slapped all of the locks down. That had gone a small way to helping him feel safe.

The joint and the flask of whiskey he'd nicked from his parent's liquor cabinet had gone all the way.

Smoke clouding around him and whiskey warming his belly, Ian lounged casually in the passenger seat, a battered Stephen King novel in his hands as he read with reddened eyes. Every now and then he'd get that weird feeling again-the one that tried to scream that something was watching him-but after the joint and half a flask, he was beginning to think Dirk and Gary had it right. He _was_ a paranoid little bitch. But at least he wasn't a bitch freezing it's ass off in the snow, Ian reasoned with a half-smirk on his face, bitterly remembering Dirk and Gary's earlier teasing.

He turned the next page, sloshing another mouthful of whiskey down his throat. It was only when he couldn't concentrate that Ian belatedly realised that he had to take a leak.

Ian threw the novel down and picked up the rifle. The cool air that greeted him outside was refreshing after being cooped up in the stuffy, smoke-filled car. He spied a nearby tree that would do and trudged off toward it, the rifle held tucked under his arm.

Whistling low under his breath while he unzipped and started tracing his name into the snow-it didn't take long being three letters- he leaned back on his heels and admired his work. He was concentrating hard-the others would rag on him for months if they came back to find he'd pissed himself-and so didn't hear the light tread of ruined paws in the nearby snow.

He smelt it first.

And then the low, guttural growl off to his right caught his attention. Ian's head snapped up soon enough to register that a strange, skinned animal was launching at him, but not fast enough to react. He barely had time to let go before fetid jaws snapped at his neck, not even realising that a hot stream of urine was soaking into his jeans as he was thrown onto his back.

Ian screamed, partly fear, mostly pain, and attempted pitifully to batter at the rotten creature, his hands slapping against slick but spongy flesh. It was futile. The animal tore savagely at Ian's throat. In a detached, bewildered part of his mind, a litany started up.

_It's not real I fell asleep in the car and now I'm having a nightmare it's not real I fell asleep and…_

A thick tearing sound filled Ian's ears, instantly followed by a searing, blinding agony. He coughed, choked and found that he was unable to scream or breathe.

The frenzied animal paused for a brief moment-long enough for Ian to notice with pain-sharpened clarity that it was _his_ blood that coloured the animal's gore-filled mouth-and growled, lifting torn lips to reveal blackened gums and canines stained pink with blood.

"Wuh-" he began, his eyes widening as he recognised the creature. Blood choked him, a weird-and _painful_-bubbling in his throat distorting the word.

Then the infected wolf lunged forward again. Excruciating pain cut off any of Ian's struggles.

But before the agony could entirely overwhelm him, Ian realised that somewhere, off in the distance, he could hear gunshots ringing out hauntingly over the lupine snarls.

And a chorus of low, ominous howls picking up in response.

**Note:** Nah, haven't abandoned it, just trying to fix chapters I wrote ages ago. Thanks again for reviewing!


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

_Lakeside Cabins_

Pete's fourth shot drove straight through the bear's ruined jaw. Old Ben screamed his protest, rearing his head in an almost equine gesture, sending a splatter of tissue and blood onto the now ruined snow. Pete took the opportunity to shoot again, squeezing the trigger and praying that _this_ time the damned thing would go down.

It could have been his fear, or just simply poor aiming, but the shot went wide and missed Old Ben completely, sending a puff of snow into the air instead of slamming into the enraged creature's face.

"Shit," Pete swore, adjusting his aim. He was all together aware of how his arms had begun to tremble, his heart thundering painfully in his chest. Old Ben dropped to all four paws and charged towards him, maw open wide with all intentions of shredding Pete limb from limb.

The gun almost seemed to go off in his hands of its own accord, more gore splattering onto the snow in Old Ben's wake. A small detached part of Pete's fear-filled mind noted that the bear was leaving behind gory, bloody paw prints as he charged. The closer the bear got to him, the more of its rotten-likely decomposing-features Pete could see. Old Ben no longer had any ears, only pus-filled tears in the flesh; only one gleaming white eye remained slitted above a muzzle that no longer had a nose or a lower jaw, merely a hint of cartilage and tooth among the exposed flesh.

Desperately still retreating towards the SUV, Pete's last shot tore off what remained of Old Ben's muzzle. The animal made a sound caught curiously between insane howl and whine, stopping to scratch pitifully at his ruined face.

Pete dashed the remaining few feet back to the SUV, fumbling at the driver door desperately. For a brief, mind-numbing moment he thought he'd locked it, but the handle gave under his gloved hand and the door pulled open. Pete climbed in and slammed the door shut. A glance-and a thick, gurgled roar-told him that Old Ben was attacking again, this time charging towards the SUV.

He ducked, his hand closing around the shotgun just as the bear leapt onto the hood, shattering glass around him and bowing the hood with a metallic groan. Pete was forced to duck into the seat as Old Ben swiped at him, tearing off the rear-view mirror and driving his claws deep into the padding of the passenger side seat.

Pete aimed a hard kick at the muscular arm, satisfied to hear a slimy _crack_ beneath his boot. Old Ben snarled and snapped at him, a guttural sound that sent a wave of putrid-smelling breath in his direction.

Using the last round in his handgun, Pete fired directly into Old Ben's chest, the recoil sending the monstrous creature off balance and skidding off the hood, leaving a trail of darkened blood along the white paint as he went. Pete took the opportunity to turn the key he'd left in the ignition. The SUV's engine come to life thankfully on the first try. He was about to put it into reverse when there was a sudden shudder throughout the vehicle, the mechanical grinding of the engine unable to compete with Old Ben's roars and groans.

The SUV began to rock, the suspension shrieking its protest. Pete caught a glimpse of Old Ben slamming into the passenger side of the car, sending it close to tilting with a gut-wrenching lurch. Scrambling to kept his balance-and the unloaded shotgun in his grip-Pete shrank back when the blood-stained and torn paw came scrabbling through the smashed passenger side window.

Using the shotgun's wooden stock to batter at the paw like a club in a futile effort to keep it back, Pete was tempted to open the door and make another run for it. The fact that only national forest and empty cabins could be found for miles was what kept him inside. If he was going to have any chance escaping Old Ben then he was going to need the RCMP vehicle.

The shotgun sent a smatter of gore onto the car's roof. Old Ben yowled, a noise that Pete thought sounded like a lion being strangled, and pulled back his paw. Pete took the chance to open the glove compartment, where he kept the ammo for his shotgun. He was only able to get a handful of shells before the SUV rocked again, this time groaning as it dangerously tilted and slammed back onto its tires.

One or two shells dropped to the car floor at his feet, but Pete ignored them to stuff the rest into his jacket pocket. He reached for another handful when the bear rammed into the SUV again-this time sending it over onto its side.

He scrambled for a handhold, but found none. His head hit the steering wheel, which forced a chocked cry of pain out of his lips before he was thrown to the left, his ribs and shoulder joint crushing against the driver's door. The violence left him winded and gasping for air in the strange silence that followed.

Pete coughed, but the pain that laced his left side forced him to suppress it. He waited for a moment. There was nothing. Only his own shallow breathing filled his ears.

For a wild, brief moment, Pete thought Old Ben had left. He pushed up, relieving the pressure on his side. His shotgun was somewhere beneath him-he could feel the stock digging in below his ribs-and the ammunition had scattered from the glove compartment, lost amid the snow, glass and equipment that had been thrown about by the assault.

There was no sound outside except the SUV's still humming engine. He couldn't see the animal's ruined hind legs and decided he should risk getting out before the bear returned. Pete carefully climbed to his knees and pulled out the shotgun from beneath him.

_I'll load this first, just in case the old guy hasn't gotten the hint._ He brushed the glass and snow off his gloves before loading the shotgun, his gaze jerking between the horizon of snow beyond the shattered windscreen and the weapon in his hands. At any moment he expected to see Old Ben's destroyed form loom above him and hear that roar…

But the bear didn't emerge. When the shotgun was loaded, Pete sat silently for a moment, waiting for his head to stop spinning and the rush of adrenaline to subside before attempting his escape.

A clear plan began to form in his mind. The cabins might be deserted this time of year, but the ranger station in the national park could provide a sanctuary. The more he thought on it, the more appealing the idea got. The ranger station was closer than the town limits-probably an hour or so if he kept up a good pace and didn't get himself lost in the hiking paths that dissected the park-and the rangers would have a better idea of what was wrong with Old Ben than he would.

Pete leaned forward, ready to pull himself up through the narrow space between the snow and the windscreen's frame. He braced both legs on the driver door frame beneath him, careful not to fall, and as he pushed his shotgun out ahead of him-

-the SUV began to shudder and rock again, an infuriated howl deafening Pete and sending him falling forward, directly into a waiting paw-

-unbalanced and desperate not to fall into Old Ben's clutches, Pete brought up his left leg and braced it against the snow, pushing back as he pulled the trigger of the shotgun-

_BOOM!_

The sound of the shotgun was louder than Old Ben's growls and in such a confined space it felt like it blew Pete's eardrums, making his ears ring and his head spin dizzyingly. The shot went wild, slamming into the snow directly in front of Pete and sending a spray of loose flakes into his face, distracting him. Old Ben groaned again and the paw was back, gouging into the dashboard.

Pete prepared himself for another shot, aware he couldn't afford to miss again, when Old Ben's claw caught on a switch and-

The SUV's siren began to blare and whoop through the morning air, loud even in Pete's dulled hearing. He could dimly hear the bear howling and the paw was withdrawn, and through the narrow space between the frame and the snow, Pete watched in sheer disbelief as Old Ben shambled away, scraping his claws against his ruined skull.

After Old Ben had left his line of sight, Pete's heart continued to hammer in his chest, racing so fast that he feared he was having a heart attack. He kept his finger on the trigger of the shotgun for a long time, still expecting Old Ben to return and finish him off. Beside him, not muffled in the slightest by the roof, the siren continued to blare.

When it became clear that the black bear wasn't returning, Pete's grip began to relax and he slumped down again, the shotgun pointed up at the narrow opening. His heartbeat began to slow, but the terrible ache in his head refused to away so long as the siren continued to blare and whine.

Glancing down at the radio, Pete reached for it.

_It could still work, if the sirens and engines are working…_ He frowned when he got nothing but static. Leaning forward, Pete switched to the emergency channel used by the Grace Lake detachment.

The radio gave off a fuzzy static whine instead of connecting with the dispatch. Pete scowled and slammed the plastic thing against the dash repeatedly.

_No use. That thing wrecked my radio as well as my car._ He deliberately didn't think of poor Wake, lying not ten feet away in the snow. Instead he stubbornly switched through channels, trying to get a response-even the airstrip over on the other side of town would have been something.

But there was nothing to be found. Not even old Lyle Adler over at the airstrip could be heard gabbing over the radio waves.

Sighing and finally giving up on the radio, Pete glanced up at the horizon of snow and blue sky.

It was time to get going. He pushed the shotgun out first, the climbed out after it, struggling against the powdery snow that kept crumbling beneath his chest. Glad to be out of the car and careful to avoid the smears of gore Old Ben had left behind, Pete picked up his weapon and decided to head for the national park. The park rangers would have a reliable radio and could probably explain what the hell was going on with the local wildlife.

He stopped short when he saw Wake's splayed body. The man had fallen with his fingers still clasped about his revolver, his uniform shredded and his face torn. What Old Ben had left no longer resembled the gruff corporal Pete had known.

He trudged over to the body, stopping and kneeling, his numbed eyes focused on the man's still open eyes. Old Ben hadn't damaged them during his frenzy, and that made it all the worse. Those eyes were cold and flat, lacking any of Wake's nuance or animation. And it could have been Pete's imagination, but he hadn't realised his superior had such pale eyes…he'd always thought Wake's were a darker blue than that.

"I'm sorry," Pete whispered, keenly aware that wasn't adequate enough for what Wake had suffered. Guilt that he'd survived and was shamefully glad tainted his grief.

He wanted to cover Wake in some way-who knew what other infected scavengers lurked in these woods-but had nothing to do it with. The tarp had been in the SUV, and was no doubt lost amid the wreckage. He contemplated burying Wake in the snow, but decided against it at last. In his current state of mind, he'd likely forget where he'd buried to poor guy, and a few pitiful feet of snow wouldn't deter a determined scavenger.

In the end, Pete settled for having to simply close Wake's eyes. It was beginning to get overcast and the thought that snow might settle on his superior's open eyes disturbed him more than he could really explain. With thickly gloved fingers, Pete pulled Wake's eyelids shut and stood.

"I'll come back for you," he said quietly. "We'll make sure that thing doesn't hurt anybody else. I prom-"

Wake's eyes flew open.

His voice faltered and Pete had to blink-once, twice-in incomprehension, his jaw falling open slightly in stupefaction.

_They didn't just open!_ His mind called to him, fighting his senses with logic. _He'll be going into rigour mortis, its just natural, he-_

Wake sat up.

_That's not rigour mortis!_ Pete argued against logic. _He's still alive!_

Against the insistent nagging of logic-_that bear killed him, I saw it, he's not still alive, he_ can't_ be!_-Pete knelt, set down the shotgun and cautiously put a hand to Wake's shoulder, one of the few parts of his torso that hadn't been attacked. The older man's expression was blank, his pale eyes unfocused. The lack of reaction unsettled Pete, but he wrote it off to post-traumatic stress.

"It's okay Wake, you're in shock from your injuries. Stay here, I'll get…" He let his voice lapse again when Wake turned to face him.

The older man's ruined lips fell open in a hungry moan, those milky eyes focused him.

Pete was reminded sharply of Old Ben, and the way the infected bear had behaved.

The corporal lurched forward, bloody hands reaching for Pete blindly. Amid his sudden panic, Pete noticed that the revolver still hung from Wake's fingers and was suddenly snapped back into reality. He pushed Wake backwards and scrambled to his feet to retreat.

Wake groaned and pitched towards Pete, as if dragged by an invisible line, each step staggering and jerky. Pete belatedly realised he'd forgotten the shotgun and was now unarmed to face Wake.

"Wake, come on, what's wrong with you?" Pete asked, his voice unconsciously rising to a higher pitch as Wake approached step by step. He tried to keep distance between them, taking a step every time Wake did, but the old guy seemed to anticipate each move. "It's me, Milner, don't you recognise me? The bear's gone, I'll get you to medical assistance-"

Ignorant to Pete's attempts to reason with him, Wake groaned again and grabbed Pete by the heavy blue jacket he wore, pulling him close in a sickening parody of an embrace.

The thickly sweet scent of blood hung over Wake, intermingled with traces of Old Ben's advanced decay. When Wake opened his mouth, Pete could see how three of the older man's front teeth had been broken during his fight with the bear, others sharpened into the jagged talons of a trap, his swollen and bitten tongue staining the teeth pale pink.

Before Wake's jaw could close on Pete's face, the young officer drove a hard elbow upwards. Wake's head snapped up with an abrupt jerk, giving Pete enough time to duck and push Wake away.

Wake reeled forward again, undeterred, his moans growing louder after being thwarted. Pete tried to take another step back, but was brought up short by a tree branch. Not risking letting Wake out of his sight, Pete took a sideways step.

He was a step too late. Wake threw himself forward, his hands clutching at Pete's jacket and dragging him forward. Pete grabbed Wake by the throat, pushing the gaping face away from him.

The tree branch snapped, sending both Pete and Wake sprawling into the snow. Pete was quicker to act, climbing back to his feet before Wake could properly stand. With a choked shout of aggression and fear, Pete wrenched Wake firmly by the shoulders and rammed him into the tree.

_What the hell's wrong with you boss?_ Pete asked mutely, staring in wide-eyed disbelief at what he'd just done and taking a few shaky steps back.

Wake's blood-maddened expression held no answers.

_It's the bear,_ Pete realised slowly, his traumatised mind attempting to piece together the fragments of what had happened. _Whatever the bear's been infected with, Wake's got it too._

_Shit, _I_ could have it._

Pete glanced down at his gore-soaked gloves and pulled them off, dropping them into the snow at his feet. With his bare hands, he began to feel for any injuries.

Thankfully, there were no cuts, scrapes or open wounds. Only a raging headache, ringing eardrums and what he suspected could be broken ribs on his left side. It still hurt to breathe-

_But at least I'm breathing._ His gaze unwillingly fell back to Wake.

Impaled on the broken tree branch, Wake continued to drag himself along, hands reaching for Pete impotently. As Pete turned, he could still hear Wake's frustrated groans and snapping of his broken teeth.

Panting and wiping away the tears that welled painfully in his eyes, Pete walked away and picked up his shotgun. With the weapon held firmly with both hands, he turned and aimed for Wake's head.

"Again, I'm sorry," he apologised. Then Pete pulled the trigger.

Wake stopped moving and fell slack against the branch.

When it was over, Pete numbly headed for the path that would lead him through the cabins and into the national park. And, hopefully, to the ranger station where safety could be found.

Somewhere far off behind him, he heard a girl's thin scream of terror.

"_Someone help me!"_

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Lakeside Cabins_

_What the hell is that?_ The teenage girl paused on the snowy steps for a moment, startled by the sudden sound. It was like an animal enraged and insane. _There's nothing around here-and the wolves never come this far south. Has some jerk gone and woken a hibernating bear or something?_

Sarah King sincerely hoped not. The last thing she needed was for some park ranger to come snooping down here and find her breaking into one of the empty cabins that lined Grace Lake's far shore. Sarah had been careful to choose the cabins rather than the empty houses in town; the local RCMP was unlikely to get any reports of stolen property until it was too late. The rich owners of the cabins stayed well away during winter, preferring to flock north only during the summer when the climate was more accommodating.

She took the brown pouch from the deep pocket of her jacket, and then pulled off her gloves with her teeth before kneeling at the cabins' front door, keeping eye-level with the lock. After a quick assessment of the lock type and brand, she slid two picks and a torsion bar from the pouch and carefully inserted them into the keyhole. The lock was new, so it took a bit of jiggling and effort to force the tumblers, but she was grinning when the door swung open.

_Bingo._ Sarah slipped the tools back into the pouch and hurriedly returned the pouch to her pocket, standing on slightly shaking legs. It had been almost two years since she'd last pulled a job off on her own.

_I have to_, she thought, swinging her backpack over her shoulders and advancing through the door. _How else am I going to afford the bus fare south?_

Sarah was standing in a slightly dusty, but nicely furnished living room. She slipped her thick gloves back on and closed the door behind her, her green-blue eyes scanning the room for anything of immediate value. She absently brushed snow off her shoulders as she walked.

The room was simple, with a few couches facing an enormous fireplace, a bookcase lining the opposite wall and large picture windows giving Sarah a spectacular view of the wide expanse of Grace Lake, frozen and shining brilliantly in the sunshine. For a brief moment, she regretted having to leave. For all its faults, this town was beautiful, especially in summer when the forests were alive and full of animals, when the small beach on the lake's east shore was full of summer tourists and locals.

_That's not enough, you know. Pretty flowers and trees aren't going to pay your way through the world, are they? _

Of course not. Sarah recollected her resolve and started for the stairs, her sneakers softly smacking against the dusty floorboards. She climbed two at a time, reaching the landing quickly and heading for the first open door.

_Damn, and this is a summer cabin? Some people have it good._ It was a bedroom, and a nice one at that, the kind with carved wooden furniture and fancy bedcovers that despite being older than Sarah had retained their colour. Sarah had to resist the urge to throw herself on the dusty coverlet and jump on the bed. _No mucking around. Just get something and get out. That's all. The bus is due at midday._

The dresser beside the window was a good place to start, she reasoned, so she started rummaging through the drawers and jewellery boxes.

_Nada_. She shook her head, annoyed with herself and the rich idiots who owned this cabin. She'd been hoping that something would be left behind, like jewellery or the useless knick-knacks that rich people always seemed to dozens of. This place was skint.

Leaving the bedroom behind her, Sarah ventured into what appeared to be a study. Probably some old man's, with all the leather-bound volumes that lined the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the stuffed hunting trophies above the empty fireplace. The glass eyes of the stuffed bear and deer seemed to follow her in a creepy way. Sarah was about to declare the room a bust when a glint of metal caught her attention as she turned.

She stopped in front of the glass case, her eyes widening as she saw all the coins lined neatly in rows. Sarah took a step back, noting the simple lock on the display case's doors. She slid a paperclip out of her jeans pocket-with some locks it was better to keep it primitive-and quickly picked the lock. She grinned eagerly, picking up one of the handwritten labels. It read-

_Peace Dollar-United States, 1921_

Not making sense of it-but instinctively knowing that the tarnished silver coin it sat in front of would easily cover her bus fare south-Sarah put the label down and started picking up the coins one by one. The jumble of coins fit easily into the front pocket of her backpack, jingling with the promise of profit as they fell through her fingers. She started on the shinier, more modern coins, but abruptly stopped when she reached for another large silver coin.

The tiny handwriting simply read-_ Grace Lake Medallion_.

The young thief frowned, puzzled by the label.

_What the hell does that mean?_ Sarah would have considered it a trashy tourist memento, but the thing was tarnished and clearly real silver-and it sat between two other similar coins. She leaned forward to get a better look.

The one on the right seemed to be made of gold, the one on the left bronze. Like the "Grace Lake" medallion, both were tarnished and worn, the engravings hard to make out. Sarah picked them up, squinting as she set them out in a row on her open palm.

She picked up the silver one first, inspecting it carefully. It wasn't much bigger than a quarter, but even through the tarnish, the detailed bear engraved into its face was clearly visible. Sarah supposed it was Old Ben, and turned the medallion over to see if it had been to commemorate some town anniversary.

She was surprised. The opposite face was blank-except for the tiny sapphire set into its centre.

"What kind of medallion had a sapphire in it?" Sarah asked herself. Realising she'd spoken aloud, she blushed and slipped the strange medallion into her jacket pocket. She focused on the other two medallions.

The bronze one had to be the _Raccoon City Medallion_, Sarah guessed, because of the raccoon engraved into it, a chip of ruby set into its back. The last, gold, had to be the _Haven Medallion_ by elimination. Sarah stared at this the longest, impressed by the alligator coiled upon its face. Incredibly detailed, even down to the tiny teeth lining the narrow jaw, Sarah wondered if Haven was a place too.

_Probably some backwater pit the idiot who owns this place calls home_, she thought snidely, pocketing the other medallions. _Probably makes this dump look real good in comparison._

With nimble hands, Sarah took the remaining coins and was zipping up the front pocket of her backpack when another roar filtered in through a nearby window, close enough to make Sarah jump guiltily and scan the room for intruders.

_You're the intruder here, remember?_ She reminded herself and smiled.

Curious and concerned for whatever animal could cause such a ruckus, Sarah puled on her backpack and approached the nearest window. Another choked snarl made her jump with fright-it sounded close-and backtrack a few steps away from the heavy window dressings. Forced to grab a hold of a nearby armchair to keep her balance, the coin-laden bag ringing, her sneakers tripping on the rug's edge, Sarah straightened and pulled the heavy drapes open.

At first there was no sign of a disturbance. All she could see was the forest as it sprawled out into the distance. From her vantage point, the upper-storey windows of two nearby cabins winked in the sunlight. Her gaze drifted to the right, where a strange blackened structure emerged from the canopy like charred bones. There was a clearing, but the trees cut off Sarah's line of sight, preventing her from actually looking down at it. She turned left.

Another chortled, menacing roar-it sounded to Sarah like a dragon being roused from a long sleep-rang out clearly to her right.

Sarah frowned and was about to go into another room-maybe find a clearer view-when gunshots began to echo through the morning, mingled with the animal's screams of agony. Horrified, Sarah pushed away from the window sill. As she left the study and skidded into the hallway, Sarah could have sworn she heard human shouts and screams joining the sickening chorus.

The last room at the end of the hall was another bedroom, again filled with heavy, expensive furniture. This room, unlike the first bedroom, had a definite air of femininity. There was a mauve duster on the bed and a mint-green crotched blanket folded neatly at its foot, the vanity had a tarnished mirror and comb set neatly beside a closed sketch book that was opened to page of sketches.

Sarah paused by the sketch book. The pictures were rather good, she decided, if not a little disturbing. The sketches were of human bodies, male and female, detailed and posed in a variety of natural positions-sitting, standing, running, dancing, clapping…. The only thing missing was the faces-each was blank, without even the basic facial structure like noses or eyes or mouths.

Sunlight filtered in through the lacy curtains, dust motes dancing in Sarah's wake as she brushed past the bed and approached the window. Sarah pulled the curtains aside, and found herself staring down at a horrific scene.

The new angle provided a clear view of the clearing-and the carnage. An RCMP vehicle was parked at the edge of the clearing, in what Sarah guessed to be one of the access driveways that snaked about this part of town. Not far from it was a dark lump surrounded by snow stained scarlet. A smaller figure retreated towards the parked SUV, both arms held out in front of him.

It took Sarah a moment before she realised that the figure was an RCMP officer shooting towards the dark lump. For a terrifying moment, Sarah thought the cop was killing someone-and then the roaring started up again, enough to make the windowpanes shudder.

The dark shape moved again, but it was only when it swiped in the officer's direction that it finally dawned on Sarah that the attacker was a black bear. Horrifically disfigured and unseasonably conscious the animal had obviously gone crazed and attacked another bear.

The bear literally _screamed_ as the cop shot it again, retreating all the while towards the SUV. Sarah turned her attention to the crimson stain, squinting and frowning when-

_It's a human body!_ The bear moved, affording Sarah a clear view at the splayed human figure in the snow. _Old Ben's attacking people!_

Sarah couldn't help it. She turned and stumbled away, unsuccessfully fighting back the nausea that rose in the back of her throat. It only let her get as far as the bed before her stomach clenched violently and she threw up.

Outside, the bear continued to roar and the cop's gun continued to crack thunderously. When the firing stopped, Sarah could finally open her eyes.

The teenager finally got a hold of her composure and stood on shaking legs. She reluctantly approached the window, peering out cautiously.

The bear gave another roar and attacked the car with tremendous force, the shriek of metal and breaking glass making Sarah flinch and finally stagger away, a hand clapped over her mouth to stifle any inadvertent noises. The idea that she might attract the attention of the hulking monster horrified her.

_If it killed a cop like that, what chance do I have?_ She asked herself, avoiding the mess she'd made on the floor and leaving the room behind her. The door closed behind her, muting the screeching and roaring outside. Standing perfectly still in the muted, darkened corridor, Sarah wondered what she could to help.

_A phone, there's got to be a phone,_ she thought desperately, _I'll contact the detachment and tell them there's an emergency- _Outside, a lone shot rang out, followed by a low whining and another series of metallic creaks and groans.

_Where'd the phone be?_ She couldn't remember one from the master bedroom, but headed for the study, just in case she'd missed a telephone in her distraction. A quick scan yielded no phone-but something she'd missed the first time caught her eye.

The ornate shotgun was mounted on the wall in a framed glass case placed conveniently above the heavy wooden desk.

_I could reach it, if I got on tip-toe_, Sarah hazarded, approaching the desk. She absently picked up a heavy bookend as she passed a set of shelves-heavy granite that sat easily in her hand, carved into the head of some old guy she didn't recognise. Staring up at the case, Sarah climbed onto the desk, balanced and careful not to knock over an antique-looking lamp.

Sarah covered her face with one crooked arm and brought back the other with al her strength.

Large glass shards shattered into smaller jagged fragments at her feet, littering the desk with glittering splinters. Sarah ignored the glass, bringing down her crooked arm and reaching into the case with eager hands. The antique weapon in her hands, Sarah jumped down with a crystalline _crunch_.

She inspected the weapon eagerly. It was an old double-barrelled shotgun, the kind her older brother Seth kept in the shed at home for hunting. Sarah debated for a moment whether or not it was loaded.

_Don't be ridiculous. No one keeps a loaded shotgun mounted behind glass._ She frowned, brushing strands of her fringe from her face. Unable to remember how Seth reloaded the shotgun at home, she began biting her lower lip anxiously.

Somewhere outside, the heavy boom of another shotgun being fired started up.

_The mountie's still alive!_ Another thought sprung to mind. _So is that bear. And if it's rabid or sick that cop's got no hope._ She glanced down at the shotgun in her hands. _I'll try to find a phone, get help. But I'm not going out there. No with Old Ben gone mad like that._

But the strangled roars continued.

Sarah didn't like the idea f going to check on the cop. If the bear really was still out there, really was rabid, she'd get attacked and likely killed. And if the cop was still alive and survived the encounter-

_I'll have to explain what I'm doing here. If I get caught again, it's juvee for me._

She winced. Her older cousins had always had nasty tales tot ell about the juvenile justice systems in both the US and Canada. Despite her penchant for illegal and prosecutable activities, Sarah had no intention of being caught. She only had one strike left with her record.

_Trust this to happen when I decide to leave_.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Sarah was affected by something that rarely struck her-indecision. When Sarah King set out to achieve a goal, it got done, no matter what.

But what she'd just witnessed had gotten to her. There was something _wrong_ with that bear. The way it had attacked the cop in the snow, and then the cop in the car-

For once in her life, Sarah was touched by an emotion not related to self-preservation or greed.

She grimly made her choice and went downstairs, taking each step slowly. She stopped short at the foot of the staircase, mouth falling open in shock.

The pristine expanse of Grace Lake wasn't what caught her attention-it was the man standing with his back to her, framed by the enormous picture window.

Too startled at first to speak, Sarah stood perfectly still and held her breath, gauging whether or not she could retreat upstairs without alerting the previously undetected occupant. She decided she'd have better luck reaching the kitchen beyond the lounge when the man turned abruptly.

"Do you have a phone, the officer outside needs help," she said, hoping her rushed delivery would distract the man from questioning how exactly she'd gotten into his cabin.

_Not to mention his shotgun in my hands, his medallions in my pockets, his coins in my backpack…_ Trying not to panic, Sarah put down the shotgun and held out her hands in appeal. As if to reinforce her point, a police siren began to wail and blare urgently.

"Please, where's the phone?" Sarah took a step away from the stairs and began to check tabletops, bookcases…

She found the phone siting innocuously within a small bookcase, beside stacked medical journals and a pad of spare paper.

"What's wrong with it?" she demanded of the resident, who was beginning to shuffle over to her in a strange gait.

_Old guy must have had hip-break or something._

"We have to get help, there's a cop in trouble out there!" she insisted, slamming the receiver down.

The man didn't respond. It wasn't until he took one faltering step towards her that Sarah finally saw the decrepit, parched skin drawn tightly over the man's skull, the blind, unseeing eyes, the teeth bared in a black, skeletal grin that would always remain in her nightmares. His nose was missing, as was one of his hands. The other had turned and twisted so the fingers were clawed.

"Mister…" Sarah trailed off, unable to comprehend what see was seeing.

The lopsided limp was explained when he passed the sofa and his lower torso came into view. One of his thigh bones was broken and jutted out cruelly through his pants leg, twisted like a television contortionist. A part of Sarah's disbelieving mind wondered with detached curiosity how the man could possibly move, let alone stagger towards her with an injury that debilitating.

"Jesus Mister," Sarah muttered. "What's happened to you?"

He didn't answer with words so much as guttural, hungry snarls.

The man (now beginning to turn into some horror movie _thing_ in her mind) grabbed her and leaned forward to bring those skeletal teeth to bear in on her exposed throat. Sarah screamed shrilly and pushed him away.

He weighed less than she'd thought, and went stumbling into the sofa comically. But as Sarah moved to grab the shotgun, the man suddenly snapped back in her direction, arm and stump reaching out eagerly, a thin moan passing through his lips.

_He's dead, _she realised, and was glad she'd already thrown up and had nothing left of her breakfast. _He's dead and he's trying to kill me._

Sarah watched with morbid curiosity as the man shunted and hobbled to her, waiting until the last moment to dodge around him, leaping up onto the stone fireplace and running along the raised hearth. Her feet sent collectibles and knick-knacks tumbling to break on the floor. The man clumsily grabbed at her legs, but she kicked him in the face before jumping down and desperately kicking a side table into the man's path as he climbed back up. She turned took a step and-

The man reached for her again, this time grabbing a firm hold of her backpack. Sarah strained against it, imagining that awful papery thing biting her shoulder.

_Shoulder…Idiot!_

She slipped the backpack off her shoulders and ran for the shotgun, doing her best to quash her base instinct to flee The thing shuffled behind her, apparently in no particular hurry to close in on its meal.

She rounded on the shuffling, dead man and shot blindly.

The recoil sent her on her ass-hard, the wooden stairs digging cruelly into her back and the shotgun falling from her hands as she fell. Her attacker dropped to the floor, headless.

Stunned by the sudden violence and still staring mutely at the headless corpse crumpled in front of her, Sarah didn't notice the shadow that fell on her.

But she heard the shallow snort and the groan of wood straining.

Sarah slowly looked up, her eyes filling with dread when she realised what had lumbered onto the cabin's porch.

The bear emerged in the picture window. Seeing her immediately, it smashed through the glass heedlessly, sending Sarah screaming for the kitchen.

The cabin's back door slammed behind her and belatedly realising the jump over the porch railing was too high without getting injured, Sarah followed the porch, praying the bear would follow through the kitchen-

_CRASH!_

Behind her, the door was torn from its hinges. Logs were sent tumbling from their neat stack and rolled across the boards. Sarah deftly avoided tripping over one and ran. Heavy thudding picked up behind her, making the wooden boards shudder. Fighting to keep her balance and convinced she was going to die, Sarah opened her mouth and screamed with all the gusto she could muster.

"_Help, somebody help me!"_

Her scream echoed pitifully through the clearing, hardly capable of competing with the now slurred wailing of the RCMP vehicle.

Old Ben knocked over the wooden table and sent chairs and potted plants flying. One pot smashed through the small window beside the kitchen door. Forced to retreat a step to avoid being hit by one larger piece, she turned and started running for the porch steps, her steady footsteps countering the heavy crashes behind her. She was too frightened to look back, fearing that if she did she might see the bear's ruined face, its one glassy eye and the torn paws swiping to take her head clean off her shoulders.

She slipped as she turned the corner, terror-fuelled panic the only thing that maintained her balance. Sarah knew that if she fell, or faltered, Old Ben would be upon her in a heartbeat, tearing her apart like that poor cop.

So she used her terror to spur her on, pushing the swinging chair out of her way without pausing. Behind her, the pursuing bear crashed into it and tore it from the porch roof. Wood splinters rained down on Sarah and for a second, she thought one would fall into her eye, blind her and leave her helpless…

"Hurry! Over here!"

The unexpected male voice belonged to the young cop, holding something dark in his hands as he stood on the cabin path. Sarah hit the top of the stairs and jumped, absorbing the shock and keeping her footing as she staggered towards him.

She reached the cop as Old Ben reached the foot of the stairs roaring hollowly. The officer brought up the shotgun and began to fire continuously, one after another as he retreated, Sarah clutched at his back and fearfully looking over his shoulder.

The shotgun rounds thudded into the bear's decayed head, the first exploding that gory eye, the next cracking the side of the animal's skull. Impossibly, Old Ben continued on, climbing to his hind legs and slashing his pitted and decayed paw at them.

The animal gave a final groan before collapsing. A moment later, Sarah followed, her legs finally giving out beneath her.

"You okay?" the cop asked.

Sarah forced herself to nod. Unable to find her voice while staring at the dead bear, she dragged her gaze away to meet the officer's concerned expression.

"Yeah…I…"

"You're Marlene's daughter aren't you? Seth's sister? Shouldn't you be at school? What are you doing all the way out here for that matter?" Sarah's eyes dropped to the small white letters embroidered on his dark blue jacket. _MILNER._

She looked back up at his face. Officer Milner was young, mid-twenties if he was lucky, with dark curly hair framing a boyish face. Sarah thought on it for a second and said the first thing she could think of.

"You're Seth's friend," she managed.

The officer smiled and offered her a hand. "Sure, back at school. My name's Constable Milner, but I suppose in the circumstances you can call me Pete. What's your name?"

"Sarah," she answered. She glanced unwillingly back at Old Ben's crumpled form. "What's wrong here? There was a man inside that cabin-I had to shoot him. I didn't have a choice. He tried to attack me. It was self-defence." The enormity of what had happened began to sink in.

"Ohmigod. What did I do, what's happened to that bear, why did it try to hurt me, why did it kill that other cop, why-"

Her chest felt like heavy metal bands had been coiled about it. When she let out the first painful sob, the image of the dried, decayed figure loomed over her again.

Pete was visibly awkward for a moment before he reached over to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Feeling foolishly alone, Sarah began to cry, venting her fear and hysteria.

"So you saw what happened to Wake then." Pete glanced up and noticed the windows lining the cabin's second storey. "I'm sorry you had to see that. The bear's been infected by something, something worse than rabies. And I think it can infect people as well. If the man who attacked you in there was anything like my partner then I don't doubt it was self-defence."

Sarah sniffled and continued to bawl.

"Hey, it'll be alright. We'll get out of here," the cop reassured her. "You can come with me. I'm heading for the ranger station in the national park. It'll be safer there, we can call for help."

Sarah got a hold of herself, wiping at her tear-stained cheeks with her gloved hands.

"How'd you get here Sarah?" Pete glanced about.

She gestured towards the side of the cabin where she'd left her brother's trail bike. "Used Seth's trail bike," she managed to answer.

The cop's face lit up. "A bike would make better time through those paths," he said. "We'll get to the station in half an hour, tops."

"I don't think I can ride right now," Sarah pushed herself up. "It takes all my concentration at the best of times not to kill myself."

"I'll drive, you sit," Pete replied. "Think you can manage that?"

Sarah nodded and pulled the ignition key from her pocket as she led the way. The medallions clinked together, but Pete didn't notice. With her backpack still back in the cabin, the medallions and her lock picks were the only thing left from her burglary. But she had absolutely _no_ intention of ever going back for her things.

Pete found the bike and walked it to the path carefully, Sarah tagging behind.

"So what were you doing out here anyway?" Pete asked curiously, climbing onto the bike.

"I-" Caught for an explanation, Sarah did the only thing she could think of.

"I was hanging out, cutting school," she lied.

Pete impossibly managed to find the humour to chuckle and smile over at her.

"Bet you regret choosing to skip school now," he said, starting the bike. It chugged and spat thick smoke into the clean air about them. Sarah couldn't complain about the smell of exhaust fumes, not after having been in the presence of something that had offended her basic human senses.

She thought of Old Ben smashing through the picture window, of the mummified husk of a man clawing for her hungrily.

"Don't tell me about it," Sarah replied, a scowl on her face as she climbed onto the bike behind him.

A/N: Read through after post and realised I'd left a gaping hole in the story through editing. Had to delete and repost. Sorry.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

_Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia_

"Hey Riley! Wait up!"

Dennis Riley hissed impatiently, but stopped short of entering the conference room. He turned slowly, not bothering to hide his impatience beneath a veneer of civility. When Dennis got annoyed, he made sure everyone knew about it.

"How could you possibly be late for this meeting?" Dennis demanded the taller blonde man, pushing his large glasses up the bridge of his nose and tapping the folder he held against an open palm. "This is the opportunity we've been waiting for almost four months. What were you doing that could be more important?"

Paul Turner gave Dennis a lazy smile and stretched his arms as he entered the conference room, his loud yawn interrupting the heated discussion at the table. Six men and a woman stopped and watched the two enter with obviously animated gazes. A nervous Samuel Price was bent over the table, a memo held in one clutched hand, an accusing finger held in the nonplussed face of Edgar Gibbons, a noted biochemist and new addition to the team. Amy Glasson watched on with a cold expression, but Turner knew from past experience that her nervous fear was betrayed by the way she sat ramrod straight, hands kept hidden under the table.

_Bet she's counting again_, Turner thought, smirking. Amy had OCD-obsessive compulsive disorder-and although she'd overcome much of it, her response to stress was always predictable-she'd count, divide, multiply, anything mathematical to quash her apprehension.

_At least she's stopped doing it whenever I enter the room_. _It was getting to be a pain in the ass. _Since Turner had broken off their relationship, Amy had lost any nervousness around him. She detested him-clear and simple.

Heavy-set Kieth Wyatt was going over the files they'd all been sent hours earlier, his lips moving as he silently read aloud. Having been otherwise engaged, Turner had failed to read the files himself. He approached the table and read a few sentences over Amy's shoulder.

_Attention: EIS, Centres for Disease Control, Atlanta USA_

_RE: Suspected "Tyrant Virus"_

_From: Grace Lake Hospital, Manitoba CANADA_

Turner raised his eyebrows at Amy, who gave a disgusted snort and deliberately turned away, lifting her nose snobbily.

"I was entertaining Oliver's new lab tech, the blonde. Two of you owe me fifty bucks. Payable immediately," he said loudly with the grin of a Cheshire Cat, making certain everyone in earshot overheard. When no one made the usual sarcastic comments, he made a face. "What's got the old man and the others all worked up?" he asked Amy.

She deliberately ignored him.

One of the men at the table-a small, balding fellow wearing a white lab coat with a nametag that read VAUGHN-threw Turner a filthy look and opened one of the folders in front of him. "Shut up Turner and take your seat. We don't have time for your usual bull."

Turner raised his eyebrows and held up his hands in a peace gesture. "Shit Owen, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or somethin'?"

Owen Vaughn scowled, but didn't look up from the file.

Dennis took a seat beside Amy and opened his folder. Turner sat beside Wyatt, an overweight virologist who specialised in off-colour jokes and Hershey bars.

"Hows it going Keith?" he asked Wyatt, yawning again and flopping onto the table with a dramatic sigh. "Your wife still missin' me?"

Wyatt laughed good-naturedly and shook his head, glancing up from his reading. "Be serious, Paul. This is important."

"So everyone keeps telling me," Turner replied with obvious boredom, tilting his chair back so he dangled precariously. "I'd probably take this business with serious consideration if Morrow wasn't in charge." He frowned, slightly puzzled. "Why are we here anyway?"

Wyatt opened his mouth to speak, but shut it with an audible _click_ when his eyes fell on the door.

An older man entered the conference room, followed closely by a slender redheaded woman carrying a hefty armload of files and folders. The room immediately fell into respectful silence, the researchers sitting upright in their chairs. The only one who didn't was Turner.

"Good morning people," Dr. Douglas Morrow greeted his staff, standing at the head of the table. His assistant stood stoically behind him, deliberately ignoring Turner's teasing winks and blown kisses.

There shouldn't have been a response-by common consensus, it was agreed that Morrow never expected a reply to his greetings or even answers to his questions-but Turner couldn't help himself.

"Good morning Dr. Morrow," he replied in a sing-song voice best recognised by elementary school teachers.

Morrow scowled over the table at Turner.

"Nice to see you condescended to join us this morning, Dr. Turner," he replied in a terse voice. "I trust I'll have your undivided attention for the duration of this meeting?"

Turner gave the redhead an obvious wink. He was rewarded when the corner of her mouth flickered in a suppressed smile.

Morrow glanced over his shoulder at his assistant and nodded curtly. She turned off the lights and walked over to where a slide-projector was set up on a low table.

Morrow pulled down a grey screen. A large photograph of a man strapped to a hospital cot loomed above the table like a ghostly mirage.

"This is James Gilbert of Grace Lake, Canada. Age, 39. Husband, father of three. Relatively little health problems until recently. Worked at the Westley Open Mines until they went out of business last year. A recreational hunter in his spare time." He nodded at his assistant.

The next photo was much closer, showing the unmistakable milkiness of cataracts, the pale and greying hue of the patient's skin.

"Is this "Tyrant Virus" Raccoon Syndrome?" Gibbons inquired.

Morrow nodded and the next slide came to view. It was a blood sample, revealing a cellular structure allten researchers were familiar with.

"This is Raccoon Syndrome."

Another slide clicked, and another blood sample filled the overhead screen.

"This is what was sent to us. I've already determined that the virus is the same one we investigated last year."

No one spoke.

Morrow nodded. The slide clicked again, this time an aerial photograph of a small town surrounded by forest and an expanse of frozen lake.

"How did it get there?" Pitel asked. "That town is hundreds of miles from the original hot zone. How can we assume that this is indeed Raccoon Syndrome?"

"He got injured hunting," Price read from the file. "After what little we discovered and the Raccoon survivor's testimonies, its clear Raccoon Syndrome. Could he have caught it naturally?"

"How can you catch an engineered virus 'naturally'?" Gibbons asked with clear disdain.

"Nothing was ever found to prove that Raccoon Syndrome wasn't a naturally occurring organism," Price snapped back.

"Idiot," Gibbons commented. "Could it be any clearer this originated in a lab?"

Turner ignored their bickering and took Wyatt's file to read, although he smiled smugly and occasionally glancing up to meet the assistant's eyes knowingly.

"The results sent from the local hospital confirm that this disease is in fact what we refer to as 'Raccoon Syndrome'. The blood cell count fits, and the corresponding hormone and enzyme levels do as well. The description of degenerating motor skills, necrotising affects and increased violence and aggression echoes what our Raccoon City researchers uncovered before the cleansing. The attending doctor insisted we get these results, as well as sending the original patient file."

"Lucky that," Amy commented sincerely.

Turner snorted. "More likely wanting to cover his hide. Probably had no idea what was wrong with the guy and palmed responsibility off on us."

"I disagree," Dennis insisted, pulling out a sheaf of paper from his folder and handed them to the woman next to him, and they were passed down the table to Morrow. "From what I understand, this Dr. Cooper was the second to attend to Gilbert. The first doctor suspected rabies and sent the results to the Vancouver centre. This Cooper disputed the diagnosis and sent the results directly to us."

"What are you getting at?" Turner crossed his beefy arms across his chest. "You think this Cooper knew about Raccoon Syndrome?"

"I don't think he just 'suspected' this infection was Raccoon Syndrome." When Morrow looked up abruptly from the papers in his hand, Dennis fixed a cold little smile to his thin face.

"He knew it was Raccoon Syndrome. He's worked on it."

"You can't venture that," the grey-haired Frank Roberts argued, little lines deepening in between his brows. "Where's your proof?"

"The fact Umbrella has been sniffing through the Canadian health records and database supports my theory. All inquiries were limited to four names-Joseph, Lindsay, Benedict and Cooper. They got two hits." Dennis took out two patient files, recognisable from their grey sleeves, and passed them on.

"How did you get this?" Amy asked, furrowing her pencil-thin eyebrows. Turner pitied Amy-she had no appreciation of a good time from his experience. She was all about cold facts and data.

Dennis swallowed before continuing, visibly nervous under Morrow's withering stare.

"I have a friend in the Canadian Health Department," he admitted. "And if you must know, I've got another in our Health Department as well. After the aborted investigation last year, I asked them to keep me informed of any strange activities in patient files-you know, being accessed in places that could be construed as unusual, or doctors who reported odd symptoms and behaviour in patients, weird treatments or requests.

"My Canadian friend contacted me immediately, sent me these files and told me that he'd noticed this strange activity for over six years, and that last October, the database stealing stopped after these two files were called up. I didn't think much of it at first-what would a multi-national corporation like Umbrella want with a small-town doctor and his daughter? I was looking at more important people, more suspicious activity, like drug trials, illegal experiments, unethical treatmentand disappearances. But when Dr. Morrow sent out the Grace Lake files this morning, I knew this had to be connected."

"This can't be correct," Amy interrupted, holding up a record chart.

"It's all correct, I verified and checked through the proper channels," Dennis replied evenly.

"But the daughter-" Amy shook her head. "These records indicate she'd never been into a hospital or medical clinic until she was fourteen."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Turner asked irritably.

"I mean there's nothing until this car accident. No measles, no flu, no accidental bone breaks or fractures. _Nothing_." She shook her head, as if believing that by expressing her disdain of such a claim would make it disappear. "No child is that charmed. Even I fell off my bike and broke my leg at six."

Wyatt grumbled his laughter, and Turner echoed it-he couldn't imagine arrogant Dr. Glasson ever being frivolous enough to ride a pushbike. "I fell off the roof at ten, damn near broke my neck," the big man added.

"I got measles, mumps and chicken pox in the one year," Gibbons added with a thin smile.

"Rough trot," Price sneered unsympathetically. Gibbons just smiled back.

"That's what I mean. Until she was fourteen years old, nothing happened to this child. No appendicitis, no bad cuts. Nothing." Amy read on, and made another face. "There's not even a record of her even having been inoculated as a baby, which is ludicrous. There isn't even a Rubella vaccination here, and the Canadian authorities ensure every female student gets that."

"Probably off sick that day," Turner offered with an unconcerned shrug.

"Maybe she has a great fairy godmother," Pitel joked across the table.

"Mustbe a damned good one too," Wyatt added. "Wish they'd drop in on my family once in a while."

"An interesting sidenote, but how exactly does this prove a connection between Cooper and Umbrella?" Price asked, tapping a biro against his mug of cold black coffee.

"The names accessed through the database over the past six years. At first there was three- Joseph. Lindsay. Benedict. But my buddies' research proved that after October, the search expanded to include another name-Cooper. I did a little researching of my own this morning and found something that might be of interest." Dennis leaned forward. Turner visualised Dennis like a fox that's caught the hen and has slunk back out of the hen house without rousing the farm dog, laughing silently at its own cleverness. With his narrow, angular face and reddish beard and sly tawny eyes, Dennis even resembled a fox.

"Three form true names, real people. One is on those files-Lindsay Cooper, the doctor's daughter. The other I found in the Canadian Medical Association's records. Joseph Lindsay. A surgeon reported missing in 1992 after the deaths of his family in a horrendous car accident in Winnipeg-wife, son…" A slow grin spread across Dennis' face. "… and daughter."

"So the man killed his family and gotaway with it," Turner dismissed. "That still doesn't prove a direct link to Umbrella."

"Joseph Lindsay was a surgeon-apparently an excellent one too. His surgical ratio was remarkably high, seemed to rarely lose a patient. In '82, he left his comfortable position at St. Mary's hospital in Montreal after being headhunted by an influential pharmaceutical company. One we've all had the unfortunate necessity to encounter."

"Umbrella," Morrow stated with a twinge of admiration in his tone. "So you believe that this Norman Cooper and Joseph Lindsay are one and the same?"

Dennis nodded. "And this child of his can't be his true daughter-she's dead, buried in Winnipeg. This 'Lindsay Cooper' must be another Umbrella employee-"

"Or test subject," Turner hazarded with a wave of his hand.

"It's obviously an alias," Pitel dismissed, stroking his thick moustache. "That would explain the lack of activity in her medical records."

"If the identity didn't exist until the accident-which wasn't until late '92-then it would explain why there are no records of earlier health problems," Amy added, her pale blue eyes relieved behind the thick lenses she wore.

"I suspect that Joseph Lindsay must have left his employers at some point-possibly in '92. And to secure his and his accomplices' safety, he took insurance with him when he left."

"You believe he infected this man deliberately?" Price demanded, his voice cracking and failing to hold his accusing tone.

"He wouldn't conduct his own experiments." Vaughn's reedy voice cracked as he met the collectively dread-filled expressions of the rest of the EIS team. "Would he?"

Dennis shrugged. "Perhaps. Or maybe someone else found whatever vial he had hidden and let loose." Unlike Vaughn, he didn't shrink from the sombre looks he received from the other researchers at the table.

"Possible," Morrow said. "That conjecture was brought up at our discussions on the Raccoon City outbreak, but the company admitted fault, if not publicly, then to the involved authorities. There's been no official response from the Canadian government as of yet and Umbrella has made no move to quarantine the area. We can't definitively claim they have any involvement."

"Unlike our trustworthy government did back in Raccoon," Calhoun added with a sarcastic laugh. When Morrow glared at him yet again, he gave the older man a playful salute with one finger.

"That doesn't mean they won't," Wyatt said. "That's why we've been given a day, isn't it? They're going to quarantine this town."

"Who, Umbrella, the US army or the Canadian army?" Turner asked with an exaggerated shrug. "So many takers-"

"Enough, have some respect for the situation you insensitive shit. This town could end up like Raccoon City did. Dead, blown to shit and left for the infected. You want that in your native country? Huh?" Prices' face was flushed red, his cheeks puffed out in a comical gesture that reminded Turner of a pig.

"Not my problem anymore. I'm a US citizen now, remember?" Turner replied, the grin leaving his face. "Someone else'll take care of it."

"What if they don't?" Price argued, slamming a palm on the table and knocking over a stacked pile of folders. "What if it gets out? Shit, don't you remember what it was like there? The survivors, their reports? Damn it Paul, there's an incident file bigger than your apartment! Every single one of them said the same thing- a cannibal virus, unnatural mutations and everything left within that city dead and killing anything with a real pulse and clean blood."

"Enough," Morrow interrupted. All eyes turned to him, Turner's unwillingly.

"A six-man team will be sent to Canada to retrieve the infected patient and assess the virus first-hand," Morrow announced grandly, as if he was Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. The other CDC researchers glanced apprehensively at each other. Turner met Dennis' eyes and was a little surprised to see the eager anticipation on the epidemiologist's narrow face. "The Canadian government has given us a day to study the Raccoon Syndrome and retrieve a live patient for further research into a possible vaccine."

Someone to Turner's right muttered, "That's not long enough!"

"It will be long enough to achieve our objectives," Morrow added.

"Are we going to be escorted?" Pitel asked.

It was a fair enough question, Turner mused. Most at the table had been on hand during the Raccoon City outbreak, surrounded by US Army and private security men armed to the teeth ostensibly to guard them. Turner chuckled under his breath, remembering how the very presence of armed guards had only served to undermine their work. None of those narrow-eyed soldiers had been willing to answer questions and the way they'd held those assault rifles had convinced the CDC team that they'd be more than willing to shoot them too should any fall prey to Raccoon Syndrome-or their own curiosity.

_Never let us get too close to their own emergency centre,_ Turner recalled, thinking of the odd collection of tents and mobile labs Umbrella had set up just outside the quarantine zone. _Probably didn't want any of us to find anything incriminating on them. Too bad a payload of their virus got out and wiped the population. _He returned to a thought he'd dwelled on often since last October. _We'd have never of known if it hadn't gotten out, not until it was too late. _

"There will be a two-man escort sent in with you. We intend to have you out before the end of the day."

Turner tried to catch Dennis' eye, but the epidemiologist was ignoring him, focused entirely on their superior. Disappointed but not surprised, Turner raised a hand and asked the question the others at the table had suppressed asking outright.

"Is it true that Raccoon Syndrome is an Umbrella product?" Turner's chair creaked as he leaned forward, arms folded on the table. "Is it a biological weapon?"

The silence was palpable. Dennis and the others all turned to face Turner with scrutinising expressions touched by disbelief at the tone he'd taken with their superior. No one addressed Morrow in that kind of tone-the last researcher to try that had been sent packing before the next shift.

_Screw them_, Turner thought sullenly. _If I'm the only one at this table with the balls to ask-_

"That is no concern of yours, Turner," Morrow answered, his tone cutting across the table like an invisible whip as his expression settled into a lined and stern mask. "All we want you to do is study it. Leave the big questions for us."

_Sure, _Turner thought rebelliously_. Like we left Raccoon City to you and the higher ups-and the majority of the American public still doesn't know the truth of it all. _

He met Dennis' gleaming eyes. Was it his imagination, or was there a touch of greed lurking there?

**A/N-** I know it's taken me ages to update. Sorry! But I've got this tendency to keep tinkering with plots and characters, even after I should have it all settled, so this story stalled a bit. But it's been figured out (until I change it again that is) so I should be updating more regularly. Thanks to **Squirrel54** and **foxdude33** for the reviews, and yes, Lindsay's supposed to be depressed, but it isn't pointless angst. It does a have a point in the end-the next chapter should explain why she's such a sook.

Next up-Cooper makes an unpleasant discovery, Lindsay has a bad morning at work and Jake discovers there may be more to his mission than either he or his employers first assumed .

Sounds like some bad soapie when I read that back. Been watching too much Arrested Development and Scrubs lately : ) The whole voice-over/internal monologuething's started to sink into my brain and seep into my writing.


	8. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

_Hospital_

"Answer damn you!" Cooper shouted at the phone receiver, losing his control.

The phone continued to ring without being picked up on the other end.

He spared a glance at a small clock on the wall. Yes, almost ten o'clock, his lazy daughter should have been up and out of bed by now. She could at least answer the phone when he called, Cooper seethed.

He let it ring out until the answering machine picked up the call.

"Hey, you know who you're calling and how it goes." Lindsay's sullen message played over the tape. "And here comes the-"

The mechanical beep sounded in Cooper's ear.

"Lindsay, it's your father. I want you to meet me at home." There was a knock at his office door. "Immediately." He hung up, without leaving any endearments and called "enter."

Della Fairbanks entered, a file in one hand and a downcast expression on her face.

"What is it?" he demanded, reaching beneath his desk for his briefcase.

"The patient's condition is getting worse," she said hesitantly, dropping the file on his desk. He released the briefcase and flicked through it-then stopped at the temperature readings taken ten minutes before he'd returned to his office.

It was amplifying at an extraordinary rate. The patient was nearing the comatose state that preceded the loss of motor skills.

_Only a matter of time before he's gone._ _And after that..._Cooper stared down at the file, the black biro contrasting sharply against the too-white paper. His eyes began to ache, and he was certain another headache was well on its way.

He pulled off his glasses, the world a comforting blur while he rubbed at his brows to head off the coming pain.

"Doctor? Has the CIC-"

"They'll be here in a matter of hours," Cooper told her curtly.

"He doesn't have hours," Della argued. "That man is going to die."

"I know that," Cooper snapped, glaring at the blur standing in front of his desk. "We've done all we can."

_Liar,_ his conscience whispered. _You have something that could save him…_

Why was it getting harder to ignore that interfering voice? His shoe tapped against the briefcase. Inside, there was a slightly liquid sound, sloshing against glass maybe.

"His family is here," the nurse informed him. "They want to see him before…before he passes on."

_Nice turn of phrase. An almost peaceful descriptive when the truth is as far from it as possible. T-victims don't _pass on_. They die screaming, in the most horrible, unimaginable way possible._

"They're permitted to wave through the glass. That's all. No one enters that room." There was no room for compromise in Cooper's tone.

"Sir, they're understandably distraught!" Della protested vehemently.

"Which is why they can't enter that room. One kiss goodbye, one embrace, and they're infected too. That man has been driven insane from the infection. There is no telling that he could even recognise his family in any case."

Cooper was grateful that he couldn't see the extent of Della's disgusted expression. Nurse Fairbanks was one of those empathetic members of staff Cooper loathed working with. Always worried for the patient, not confronting the real causes or problems. The kind of staff that his previous employers would never had condoned.

"What if they were suited up?" She referred to the hospitals' three biohazard suits.

"Not an option. What if a complication arises while they're in the room with him? They aren't trained to use the suits properly, they could damage them-"

It was Della's turn to hiss disbelievingly. "Excuses. If we allowed two of them to use the suits and kept the third ready it could be done. It's cruel of you to deny his family a final chance to say goodbye." She lowered her voice, after glancing at the photo beside his computer. "What if it was your daughter?"

_Wrong question_, he thought, regaining his composure. He replaced his glasses, stood and regarded the nurse with a level expression, both hands planted on the desk.

"I would follow the rules. This is the necessity of quarantine, nurse. I suggest that if you can't deal with it, then you stand down and allow me to appoint someone that will." He was about to continue when the phone began to ring. She was staring at him in shock. "Now get out."

She did, defiantly slamming the door behind her. Cooper made a note of keeping an eye on her as he picked up the phone, staring at the door after Della's departure.

_Might cause trouble_, he thought.

"Administrators' office," he snapped into the receiver, expecting to hear his daughter's contrite monotone.

"Good morning Doctor," came a smooth, almost oily voice. "May I please speak with Doctor Joseph Lindsay? I believe he works at your office."

An icy chill went down Cooper's spine.

"I believe you have been misinformed. This is the office of Administrator Norman Cooper. Perhaps you were trying another hospital, Mr…?"

_Lindsay, have to find her, get her out…_

"Trent. Mr Trent," the man informed him, slicker than a salesman with a generous commission. "What a pity. I had information for the good doctor. Are you sure you don't know Dr. Lindsay? He was a brilliant surgeon, surely if eh were at your hospital he'd be noticed?"

"There's no one of that calibre here I'm afraid." His mouth was beginning to grow dry. "What interest do you have in Dr. Lindsay, Mr Trent?" he asked, using the icy official tone he'd use with a nurse in an effort to curb the rising apprehension in his gut.

"I had information for him, actually, and a person he might have in his company." The voice lowered in a mock attempt to seem confidential. "You see, there are parties who have a vested interest in recovering some stolen goods…and those that stole them. Do you understand, Mr. Cooper?"

Cooper closed his eyes, silently counted to five before speaking. He resisted the urge to clear his throat.

"What information might you have for this doctor?" he asked.

_They've found us. I'll have to…dispose of the samples, the specimen…_

"He might want to leave Grace Lake. Head somewhere far, far away, and recover _everything_ he took because those he stole from have found him." Trent paused, letting the words weigh down on Cooper. "And I do mean everything, Dr. Cooper. The files, the virus samples, the facility plans and authorisation memos…"

_How does he know? _That thought made his gut wrench and he fought not the throw up. How much effort and work had he put into this attempt to escape his past? Everything would have to go, to keep it all out of White Umbrella's reach.

_Can I really do that? Force myself to destroy all that data, my security, to deny them one measly unit? Can I actually pull the trigger on…it? Can I? And expect to walk away?_

"And, of course, the specimen. Unfortunately that is what they're after. But I suspect you might already know that, Joseph." Smarmy bastard knew his name…Then he remembered. White Umbrella had his voiceprint, one method of identification in its nutty paranoia-fuelled protocols. If this Trent had access to the corporations' immense files-which was likely, considering the depth of his information so far-then he probably had the equipment to gauge whether or not the person speaking over the phone was the same Joseph Lindsay in Umbrella's files.

He gave up pretending then. "You haven't answered my question. What's your interest in this? Do you work for Umbrella?" It was difficult to keep his voice down, but he knew there was staff in the corridors nearby. Grace Lake's hospital wasn't exactly large. Sound carried…not a prospect he was looking forward to when the infected patient started the final stages. The screaming would travel through the old-fashioned walls.

"I have an interest in making those files public, in securing your safety. Two worthy objectives I thought you would agree to. I must admit, I'm rather disappointed you haven't come forward after the Raccoon City fiasco. You possess a sample of the T-Virus, don't you Joseph?"

Cooper wanted to deny it, lie and answer no with all the confidence of an honest man. But he didn't. Not with the knowing, confident voice on the other end of the phone.

"I did. But after today…I'm not certain it's going to be where it should," he answered reluctantly. His gaze flickered to the framed photo on his desk. To the dark-haired little girl with her arms around a smaller boy.

The bustle of the corridor outside could be heard in the ensuing silence of the office. Nurses and orderlies called out to one another, mostly business. The patient in quarantine had sapped their usual light-hearted banter to a minimum, something he'd usually approve of. But today, in light of what he suspected what inevitable…he regretted their last day at work would be a horrific one.

"I understand that. And I also understand that concerned parties have sent numerous…visitors to your small town. One of them is likely to be responsible. I'd advise securing your evidence and leaving. I have a man myself to secure your safety-and the relevant data-and he should have arrived by now. I'd suggest returning home and waiting for him there."

"Why should I trust you? How can I be sure you aren't just setting me up so USF units can take me in?" he demanded.

Trent chuckled, amused. "Well…that's a decision you might want to consider long and hard before rejecting. What I can certainly assure you is that no one else has offered to help you, or gone to the effort of tracking you down. And I wouldn't want to be in your small town when it's quarantined."

"I won't be," Cooper retorted. "That doesn't mean…"

_What about Lindsay? _He wasn't quite sure who he meant…his daughter or himself.

"I'd make your decision quickly. Now, you'll know the man I've sent. He's as big as a bear and will probably be carrying an oversized handgun of some description amid a veritable arsenal. He has descriptions and photos to identify you and your daughter. And the specimen of course. Whether or not you choose to leave with him, or be killed is your business."

He made his choice.

Fuck it. He'd try. He'd planned for this, in the eventuality that he'd be found. Of course, a B-type outbreak wasn't something that had entered the plans-_it meant the first Case had found. Who could have known? He'd been so goddamn careful! It should still be in that case!_ His thoughts raced now the initial numb shock had worn away.

"I'll accept your help." There was a pause and Cooper opened his mouth to ask another question when a sharp rap on the door interrupted him. He ignored it. "How can I contact you if-"

"Find my man and you won't have to worry," Trent assured him. Just be certain that the specimen is appropriately sedated. Should its conditioning break during transit…well, I hope you still the Mocker's MDR active or you could find yourself in a spot of bother." Trent sounded almost merry at the prospect as he promptly hung up.

Cooper stood with the receiver in his ear, digesting the call with the dial tone beeping as the rapping turned to insistent banging on the door.

"Doctor Cooper, the patient's flat lining!" came nurse Fairbank's shout.

That snapped him out of his daze. He grabbed his briefcase and left the office, ignoring the frantic nurses demands for attention, her outraged shouts when she realised he was really going. As he passed through the lobby he was oblivious to the pleas of the poor man's family. He didn't bother to stop and offer false consolations.

He had to get home.

And fast,

**AN: **Did I make it way too obvious who Trent's agent is? Just re-read the first RE paperback and got all inspired again. And can anyone explain how to replace the automatic Chapter 1 heading on my prologue without replacing the whole thing?


End file.
